Kienbock's Disease - How I Got Here

Hey there! It's Jessica again! I know I said I was going to go for a doctor appointment on the 31st of December and try to get some more information about what's going on with my wrist. And I still haven't done that yet; still waiting for that to happen. But I thought in the mean time, I thought I would talk a little bit about how I got here. How I first started experiencing problems with my wrist, and how I got to the point of getting to a diagnosis of Kienbocks. So, I first started experiencing pain about maybe four or five years ago. When it first started, it was so mild. It just kind of felt like a general ache so I didn't really take too much notice of it. But I think it was about four or five years ago. It's in my right wrist. I am left-handed. And that's actually a little bit uncommon From what I've been researching, most people get it in their dominant hand. But I'm left-handed and it's my right wrist that is affected. So as I was saying, it started as a mild ache. I work as a legal assistant in a law firm. I'm working part-time right now, But at that time, I was working full-time, Five hours a week, eight hours a day. And sitting in front of a computer, doing a lot of mousing, a lot of typing. So, at first when I started experiencing these mild pains, I thought it was just an issue of ergonomics. I thought, you know, maybe I'm just not sitting right at the computer, I'm being too long on the mouse and on the keyboard, and that's why my wrist is starting to hurt. But after a year or two - So, at that time I would just, you know, I would take Advil as necessary, if it got really sore. Sometimes, I would wrap it in a brace, to try to keep it straight while I was typing, and while I was using the mouse. But after about, say a year or two, It did get bad enough that I thought I should see a doctor about it. So, I went to my family doctor, and I told her that I had been having problems with the wrist, and that I work in an office, that I work on computers, a lot. On computers, you know, something like 35 or 40 hours a week. And so, she figured I probably had tendonitis. She did a bunch of tests. She, you know, tested the strength in both hands, she tested mobility. And that's another symptom I had. So, if you can see. So, I've got my right hand, which is affected. My left hand, which is not. The range of mobility in my left hand; I can bend as much as I'm supposed to be able to. In my right hand, you know, I can only bend about this far. I can't bend farther than that. So she tested, and she found that I couldn't do that; she found I was weaker in this hand. Not significantly so, but just, that's one thing she found. So she prescribed me, she gave me a doctor's note to go to a physiotherapist. So, you know, in Canada of course, we're under the provincial medical plan. I'm not charged or anything to go to the doctor. But physiotherapists are not covered under our provincial plan. But I had extended health coverage through my work. And in order for them to cover physiotherapy, they needed a note from the doctor saying that the doctor thinks it's needed. So she gave me that. She said that maybe a brace would be a good idea. Like one that's actually fitted for me, rather than just a random one you get at the store. And she sent me to the physiotherapist. I went to the physiotherapist for a few months; they showed me some exercises to try to strengthen. They also were going on the assumption that it was a problem with one of the tendons; that a tendon was inflamed. And it didn't really do anything. I, sometimes...they would usually start out the appointment by having me put my hand in this like, little miniature hot tub thing, and that felt really nice. One thing I've found over the years is that heat applied to my wrist, especially if I'm just, like, dunking my hand in hot water, that really helps. But other than that kind of five minutes at the beginning of the appointment where they would stick my hand in the hot water, nothing they were doing helped. So I stopped going, and I just kind of moved on in life, and dealt with the fact that I was going to have pain every once in a while, in my hand. This year, I would say in the last month or so, or maybe even, like, the last two or three months it started getting a lot worse. And it was getting to the point that I was wrapping my hand in like, a tensor bandaid I was starting to use that instead of a brace. I was using that so much more often than I had before. Needing it probably at least three or four times a week, if not every day I was using a lot more Advil My husband and I have a hot tub at our house, so I was going in I just like the hot tub generally, but yeah, I was finding that the hot tub every day was really helping my wrist. I thought that was a little ridiculous and that there had to be some kind of problem. So, I went back to the physiotherapist and found from my insurance that the prescription from my doctor had expired, so insurance wasn't going to pay for it. So I went back to the doctor, thinking this is just going to be a quick visit where I get a doctor's note saying "yes, she needs physiotherapy, pain in the wrist" and go from there. My, at that time, my family doctor happened to be on mat leave. I was seeing her replacement who was filling in for her instead So I saw that doctor, and I kind of had to explain the whole thing over again, because she didn't have the history that my family doctor did. And when I told her, you know "I've done physiotherapy in the past, it's helped a tiny bit maybe" "but not all that much; I'd like to try it again." She agreed and she wrote me the note, but she also decided to send me for an ultrasound on my wrist, and she was thinking that that ultrasound would find specifically which tendon is injured, and help the physiotherapist target more. So we did that, I went for my ultrasound, it took about a week and a half to book, I went for the ultrasound and waited...I had booked an appointment with her to follow up on the results about two weeks after that. So, all told, about three weeks after that appointment, I went back to her and the ultrasound showed nothing which was disappointing, because I kind of like "oh good, we're finally" "going to find out, like, exactly what's wrong with my wrist" And no. There was just nothing. But, the radiologist who looked at my ultrasound had written a little note on his report saying that he suggested doing an x-ray next to see if there was any problems with the bones since I was still in pain and there was nothing wrong with any of the soft tissue. So the doctor, she was kind of like, you know, "I don't think there's anything wrong with your bones, but we'll send you" "for the x-ray just to make sure. Just to screen it out." And for, in that case, I was actually able to walk in. Ultrasounds, here, you have to book in advance but we do have some clinics that do walk in x-rays. So I was able to basically just go straight from the doctor to the x-ray clinic. And I got my hand x-rayed. And I went home and kind of forgot about it for a week, honestly. I was really expecting, no, this x-ray is just kind of a precaution; it's not going to find anything. I'm just going to be in pain forever, and we don't know why. But I did get a call from my doctor, she asked me to come back in. She said the x-ray had found something. And I went in this past Monday, which we already covered in my last video. She let me know that it is Kienbocks Well, she didn't use the word, but she let me know that the bone has lost blood supply, and is dying as a result Yeah, so that's how I got here. Now I'm really looking forward to learning more specifically about where I am in the progression of the bone dying or falling apart and whatnot, where I am in Kienbocks, what stage. And really looking forward to getting an appointment with the surgeon so that I can see where we go from here. Yeah, looking forward to my next appointment I'll be doing a new video sometime shortly after the New Year, kind of updating how that went. Hopefully, I will get an MRI, to see where we're at. And until then, I hope you all get - all have a great Christmas; we're coming up to the holidays now. Great Christmas, great New Years. And yeah, see you then!