My scandalous malady
Hey guys, guess what. I think I have De Quervain’s syndrome. This is much less exciting than it sounds. Really it just means my thumb and wrist hurt from picking up a baby a lot. It sounds exotic to have it be a syndrome, though.
You can have surgery for it, or else you can just wait for it to go away. It has no long-term effect, and there is no problem with ignoring it. If you want, you can wear a wrist brace (which is what I’m doing).
There’s this test described on the wikipedia entry linked to above: you make a fist, tuck your thumb in, and bend your wrist sideways (like, moving your pinkie toward the base of your wrist). If it hurts, you might have De Quervain’s Syndrome.
I should really stop doing it, because…it hurts. I can’t stop.
I had De Quervain’s syndrome, too, which showed up three days after Pete was born. I found it pretty upsetting. It made it very hard for me to hold Pete and also made it impossible for me to do much during the first six weeks or so of his life (like hold a book or my laptop). Mine went undiagnosed, and it would probably have helped to have a name to put with it–as well as a sense that it wasn’t permanent. It did go away, after six weeks. (Although it was hard to pump gas for some time after that.)
I hope your case is mild and short lived!!!
crap. it hurts when i do that too. huh. who knew?
see, this is why blogging is important isn’t it?
In case you are ever on Jeopardy, it’s called Finkelstein’s test. I had to wear a wrist splint for a while to get my wrist back to normal.
Phil
Ow, that hurts. apparently, I’ve been picking my baby up alot too. LOL. though she is now picking herself up very often.
Miles is such a doll….it seems like momming is agreeing with you. Oh, and it makes for entertaining reading.
mmm. awfully close to aprille fools day… MUST FIGHT URGE to click on the “wikipedia” link to verify this is a *real* syndrome and check that i am not just getting rickrolled
I have the photic sneeze reflex. I didn’t catch it from a baby, though. Stay strong, Mom!
Hey, there. My wrist got all wimpy with both kiddos. I just wore the wrist brace at night (except on the days when it hurt really badly) and that really helped. Although it is a pain to take off and put on in the middle of the night for nursing/changing/etc.
Hope it feels better! -Debi
I had this, too, when Ava was about six months old. It was excruciating, and they recommeded surgery and PT, but I waited it out (doing neither), and it eventually did go away. I hope yours gets better soon!
[…] My wrist is much, much better. It was interesting to hear how widespread de Quervain’s Syndrome is. […]