Wrist Pain: Episode 41

• In this episode: We discuss common types of wrist pain, how to assess yourself as well as their causes and some treatment options.

• Chip Review: Kettle Honey Dijon – Don Oberdorf

• Trivia question of the week: Originally from Quebec, what food comes from the French slang word for “mess”?

• Follow us on Instagram: 2pts_n_a_bagofchips and/or Twitter @2PTsNaBagOChips to see photos, video and get additional episode specific information throughout the week.

• Thanks for listening!!

 

Today we are going to discuss wrist pain and then review the Kettle Honey Dijon chips compliments of Don Obendorf.

Wrist pain. All sorts of wrist pain, the most common one we see is probably going to be wrist fractures. The other one we see pretty often is Dequervains tenosinovitis, one of the funnier ones to say and try to spell. Other common ones are carpel tunnel, osteoarthritis, overuse, trauma; sports trauma in particularly guys and girls jamming their wrist playing football, basketball, lacrosse, volleyball.

Dequervains tenosinovitis we see most often with new parents, most often moms but dads as well. Last week I saw a guy who just got a new puppy and he gave himself Dequervains. This is basically pain at the base of your thumb. This hurts the most when you do wrist deviation, specifically radial deviations. That is movement toward the thumb side of the hand.

The test for Dequervains tenosinovitis has a fantastic name, the Finkelstein test. To perform this test you take your thumb and wrap it with the other fingers and then turn your hand away from the thumb side. If that hurts a lot the base of the thumb and wrist then you have Dequervains. This is a pretty distinct test, if it is positive you will know. Dequervains is basically tendonitis of the thumb extensors.

Carpel tunnel is a well know wrist injury. Which is in a lot of cases not just at the wrsit. You get the double crush, which means something is happening at your neck as well as your elbow and wrist. It’s an easy one to miss diagnosis because if you have symptoms in your hands this is what it gets diagnosed as. Typically with this I will treat the neck. Treating the neck as well as some gentle neural glides is typically all you need. Surgery is out there and if properly diagnosed will be effect.

Arthritis, overuse and trauma are the other ones we treat the most. With these the testing and patient specific needs and goals will dictate how they need to be treated.

 

Other episodes you may enjoy:

Tennis Elbow and Golfers Elbow: Episode 7

Intro to Rebound Therapy and Wellness Clinic: Episode 1