Saturday, September 17, 2005

a quick wrist update

Some of the swelling is going down, I can see some of the normal shape of my wrist. If you look at the pics of my wrist from 2 days after the injury, the line on the pillow is where my wrist starts. I have bony wrists, like the rest of my Mother's side of the family.

Ok, no more palpating the injured site. I woke up because I heard someone IMing me, and it's time for my next dose of pain medications, not to mention that I'm usually up at this hour, kissing my husband goodbye as he leaves for work. (My brain didn't get the memo about sleeping in late.) Anyway, just I palpated the injured site, and yep, it's still injured. Hurt. Like. Hell.

In my few minutes of mental clarity, I can tell you exactly what I injured. I sprained my wrist, bruising the tissues at the end of the ulna and around the carpals (small round bones in the wrist), and stretching the tendons beyond their normal range. That's a normal sprain. I also injured the periosteum - the fibrous sheath of blood vessels and nerves that feeds the bone. The bone itself can't feel any pain, that's the periosteum's job. What I did is injure the periosteum around the ulna, that's the lump you can see to the left of my wrist on the photos. That's also the area I touched earlier, which sent an electric shot of pain up my arm. All the pain of a fracture, with no actual broken bone. Gotta love it.

I'm so glad I bought a wrist brace with a brace on the top, as well as bottom. No movement at all. The only drawback to the brace is after wearing it 22 hours a day for 4 days, I've found a few pressure points, which are easily enough fixed with some gauze and medical tape. Right now I'm giving my wrist a rest (almost typed a break, which was a little too close to the truth), before the brace goes back on.

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