# Anybody here ever have wrist/hand surgery? (torn ligament)



## lava (Dec 15, 2014)

I tore a ligament in my wrist/hand in 2008 when I was hit by a car while riding my bike. I did not know I had done it at the time. It hurt for a week but then felt ok. However, six months later, after my usual rock climbing gym routine, it started hurting. But only during/briefly after climbing. For the most part, my wrist never hurt. For the record, it always felt great while playing guitar and still does to this day. But the intermittent pain continued - I had an x-ray in 2010 that showed nothing, then another in 2012 that showed nothing. But this year I noticed it was getting worse, so I went back in...

New x-rays showed that a couple of the bones in the hand are out of alignment and that a ligament is torn. There is also some calcification forming (arthritis). The doctor recommends that I get this fixed so I won't need a wrist fusion in the future (= maybe only 15 years from now!), which would completely destroy all range of motion in the joint. 

So now I have to have part of a tendon removed from my forearm, then screwed in place where the old ligament was. They are also going to shave off some of the calcification that's in there. The surgery is two hours, I'm in a cast that I can't get wet for 8-10 weeks, then the pins come out. I wear a brace for another few months and am only back to 100% 6 months after the surgery. I will supposedly retain 95% of my range of motion afterwards.

Anyway... this sucks, but I gotta do it. Anybody else ever have a similar procedure? After you were healed, did it affect your guitar playing? Do wrist procedures like this have longevity? Hopefully the fix will last well into old age for me.


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## SeditiousDissent (Dec 15, 2014)

Unfortunately, this is a topic with which I am very familiar and have first hand experience.

When I was 16, I made a stupid mistake with a large knife that ended up with the pinky finger on my right hand suffering massive trauma. I severed the profundus tendon along with the palmar digital nerve while carving a pumpkin. Once the tendon was severed, it retracted from my finger down to the base of my wrist. I had surgery and spent 8 weeks in a Clamdigger Splint, 10 weeks in O.T. and 15 years regretting my decision.

I'll skip ahead and just get to the gist of the story...I lost all movement in my pinky finger and it is constantly in pain. It is permanently stuck in a "U" shape, and I can no longer straighten it out. My range of motion is roughly 8%. I have little to no sensory feeling in it either. All the pain is from the arthritis. I have seen specialists and other orthopedists about reconstruction, but they seem to be unanimous in their thinking that if I were to have another surgery, there's a very strong possibility that it would freeze straight out, as opposed to bent.

It does have an effect on my playing. Picking fast is more or less impossible due to the pain. Occasionally, it get's caught under the strings and I have to stop down and get it out. I can never do any 8 finger tapping (not that I really have a desire to do that). I've had to accommodate my finger picking to only use my thumb and 3 fingers. 

So, like I've said in previous threads, I'll never be a shredder, but I'm fine with that. I can still play the guitar and that's all that matters. 

TL;DR - Yes, I have experience.





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*edit for spelling


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## cwhitey2 (Dec 15, 2014)

Yeah I fractured my left wrist in gyms class in 10th grade (i'm 27 now) doing slam dunks. I held on the rim to long...my feet went forward and my body went parallel with the ground. Then my body went straight down and I tried to use my wrist to break my fall. 

Fast forward to now. In the summer all I do is golf...like 6 days a weeks 36 holes a day. Well I ended up getting a mild case of tendentious from playing so much (i ended up getting golfers wrist).

Mix that with playing guitar and you can put your wrist into some pretty painful positions. 

Thats my story


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## Winspear (Dec 18, 2014)

Sorry to hear dude. Bizarre, my girlfriend has a very similar story and she lived with a torn ligament for almost 4 years before finding out. She had similar surgery about 2-3 years ago now and it held up very well. It has only just recently started to give her some pain again - she's having a brace made to wear when it feels bad. The procedure went very well though and I wouldn't say the longevity was exactly bad given the damage.


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