I wanted to add that learning proper stretching techniques AND applying them BEFORE a practice session will help. Proper technique should prevent. If it hurts or feels unnatural probably should warn us that it is not healthy.
I am NOT a medical professional but I work in healthcare and have seen many changes and experienced must frustration with patients and providers over the last 20 years.
Your first, best resource for muscle and skeletal (I am including soft, connective tissue issues), in this day and age is NOT necessarily going to be your primary care doctor. You many not have to start there either. I will reveal my bias right now. I am in a business development role for a local partner of a national physical therapy company. I work with primary care providers, therapists orthopedic and other specialty surgeons. I wanted to share some brief advice for pain you experience which lasts longer than 2 weeks:
Aging is NOT an acceptable diagnosis, reason excuse. . . it is dismissive medicine. Yes we age and yes many of us have abused our bodies for years BUT that does not mean there is no hope. I just posted in another suspected CTS thread where a primary care provider told a patient to simply quit playing bass and typing on a keyboard and the condition would get better. . . simply put, you have a crappy provider and he or she is not and advocate for your care and basically just dismissed you! Find a better provider, what one is not good for much of anything you will ever need!
YOU are responsible for your healthcare and your healthcare costs- you must be your own advocate. Many of us do more research on a new/used car or a bass guitar than we do on our condition, insurance coverage or processes and timelines to healing- those days are over. Your health insurance cost MORE than your car payment and you are getting far less from it in the last many years. Know the plan, know the costs, know your rights, know the benefits, know the copays and know the deductibles. BE an informed consumer and be an advocate for you!
Find a provider who will work with you, educate you and stick by you for more than the average 7 minute office call. If that is all you are getting go somewhere else. Do not leave an appointment until it is all explained and you fully understand your condition and options for treatment.
YOU are responsible for getting better. After you seek help and find a provider you trust, listen to them! Do what you are told, following the dosing regimen for meds, rest the prescribed time after procedure, do the therapy exercises at home and get better. If you have no real desire to get better or you get more attention by being sick. . . .please doctor yourself, the system cannot bear the cost of anymore game playing. A good portion of healing is in your head. If your pain causes you to not want to work OR your desire to not work causes you pain. . . .there is a likelihood that you are wasting everybody else's time and resources. . . .please step out of my way so I can receive appropriate medical care and get back to my job! YES, there are tragic cases, especially in industrial settings where there are career ending situations. God bless those people. There is a safety net for them. But if your low back pain keeps you from working then please do not allow me to see you bent over washing the car on Saturday in your driveway as I will call you out! Probably much like you, I perform at least part of my daily job duties (driving for me) where I am experiencing pain. The pain I have is largely the function of weak ab muscles which poorly support my spine because I am overweight and an not currently exercising, by doctors orders, due to a neck injury. There is a theory in the psychology of the practice of medicine. It has many names but I have most commonly heard it referred to as "secondary gain" This means that you get more of what you want or think you need (love, time, attention, time off work, others who will pick up your slack at work and at home) AS LONG AS you are sick. Typically, patients who experience secondary gain, even innocently at first, by the care of those who love them. NEVER fully recover. . .because to do so would NOT benefit them! Think about it!
Where upper body injuries to the Neck, shoulder, elbow, and hand are concerned, wouldn't it make sense to rely on a provider who treats these types of issues ALL day EVERYDAY? The first rule of medicine is to do no harm. This means the most conservative approach is the best. Before increased doses of over the counter meds and LONG before a single dose of any med on which you may come to rely. .. .seek out a qualified physical therapist. Treating and working with your doctor to get you an accurate diagnosis is what therapists do everyday. In your area, there is likely a very specialized therapist who has additional training AND treats CTS (if that is even your best or most accurate diagnosis) everyday. This provider is a Certified Hand Therapist (CHT) and they have treated and helped more patients get over pain and, more importantly
prevent re injury, than most primary care providers and even orthopedic surgeons, even hand surgeons in some cases.
In most cases, your insurance company will not even permit an MRI or Surgical constult until you fail therapy as a first line tool.
In many states and with most insurers, you can walk into a physical therapy clinic without a prescription from primary care doctor and been seen for up to a month! Any therapist who knows their business is going to let your Primary Care doc know whats going on LONG before that though,
Is surgery the final outcome? YES for many people INCLUDING my Certified Hand Therapist. They are not anti-surgery, in fact they will refer you to a great hand surgeon when that is the only way out. Any Surgeon worth their degree will have to admit to you that surgery makes scar tissue, which can be problematic AND NO surgery alone will provide any promise that the patient will not have to have future surgeries. THIS is because, after surgery we must learn how not to ever create the same repetitive stress injuries again which requires a full education that you do not get with just a surgery!
OK so this became much more detailed and preachy than I had ever attended. I was Shocked by the amount of posts related to assumed cases of CTS, many which are self diagnosed. Really my take away is that we all need to do a couple of things:
- Be an informed consumer of healthcare services AND the providers we allow to treat us
- Determine how badly we want to get better
- Start conservatively with treatment OR you risk a worse outcome
- Find a great team of healthcare provides who work with each other, are respectful of you and your needs, are compassionate but not afraid to be honest, who are not dismissive
- Never accept a diagnosis of "aging" as the final word. At the point you do, you have conceded life and should go pile up in a ball and wait to pass to the next life
- Work hard to get back to the conditioning you have enjoyed
- Most Importantly- GET FIXED UP but learn how to AVOID RE-INJURY!!
All meant FWIW to you from some guy who does not treat but watches, studies, asks, observes and receives services like you do!
Brent
