bnot

I was diagnosed earlier this week with Carpal Tunnel. Last week, I was laying ceramic tile in my living room and hall. Kept waking each night, 1 time, in pain, and numb. Next morning, hand was fine, so I'd go back to laying tile. Little did I know....

I'd posted on a differernt type of board about waking up, after the and got several responses. Everyone said "give your hand rest", and get to the doc. Well, the 4th night, hand woke me 3 times, and when I woke up the next morning, my right hand was pretty useless. I tried to get in to see doc and coudnt' get appointment till this past Monday morning.

girl from another website said it "could be" carpal tunnel, so I started research on the internet. I found everything on one site but a pic of me next to list of simptoms. I got info on wrist stablizer, vitamin b6, and last friday went out and got both. I put wrist stabilizer on in the car! and it stays on unless I'm bathing. I've totally quit using my right hand for anything except a tiny bit of typing.

Friday night after having splint on all day, was the first night I slept through in the prior 4 nights.

I went to doc monday, he bent hand this way, that way.....didn't order any test, and told me what I suspected anyway. Gave me a prescription for 600mg ibuprofen, told me to take that 2 times a day, and keep stablizing it, and vitamin b6.

He said in time, with keeping the wrist stabilizer on it, it should get better, but didn't say how long this would take. I been in this thing a week, and only improvement I've seen is I sleep through the night now. thing still hurts pretty bad though. and pain seems to be getting worse.

I'm only using it to type a little bit a day, and thats IT. leanring to do everything in my life wtih my left hand now, and its started giving me some problems last day or so.

Im wondering from what little I've learned, is there anything else I should be doing?

I live alone, and have no children. I'm retired, and the rest of the stuff I refinanced the home for is "on hold" or already done. Just got the dream of my life, a 12x24 workshop, and haven't even used it yet. I love to play with flower gardening too. Have a brand new table saw out in the workshop still in the box. I feel totally helpless.

Starting to feel that I won't ever get to use the workshop. And doc didn't say anything but wrist stablizer, b6, ibuprofen, and it should get better. also said if it acts up again, back to splint till it gets bettter.

from what I see here on a few posts, doesn't take much to aggitate it again.

and from what I see doc didn't give me full pic of carpal tunnel. seems he put a lotta sugar coat on it.

has anyone seen anyone else that used wrist stabilzer and it got better? how long does it take for pain relief?? will I have to go easy on it for the rest of my life, or have surgery? will I ever be able to use tools like table saws, nail guns again?

please don't sugar coat this, I think I've had enough BS for one week.