I'm about to go stir crazy here. On 16 March I had my "LRTI with trigger thumb release" procedure done on my left thumb. This was the Friday after I won the club bow shoot with my new bow. I didn't think it would bother me so much to live one handed for a while but this is driving me nuts. I can't even tie my own shoes or button my pants yet. I still have at least two and a half weeks in this splint and then around two more months of healing/therapy before I can shoot again.
That sucks! Hope you have a great recovery. Back in February I hyper flexed my right hand by catching myself on my fist after falling in an old garage over some scattered junk. My right pinky folded over (in a fist) so far that it pulled the tendon loose from the bone and pulled a piece of bone off with it. I thought it was just jammed or something, finally went to the Dr. due to it being a little swollen and sore for too long. Options were 8 week brace and live with it always being a little crooked or surgery and like 4 pins and a brace for 8 weeks. Because "screw surgery"...I've been wearing a brace on it since that Dr. visit. From the amount of trouble I've had with just a pinky, I have some idea what you're dealing with. Mine made things rough enough and it's just a pinky. Get well soon.
Thanks, and ouch, what happened to you sounds painful. My surgery was to repair a severely arthritic thumb joint, so I didn't have any traumatic injury leading up to this. It was just a lot of pain when using my left hand that I got tired enough of to finally get it repaired. I was surprised at how involved the procedure was. They removed the trapezium bone (a small bone that the longer third thumb bone attaches to), shave down the arthritic growth on that longer thumb bone and drill a hole in the base of it. Then they go into the forearm (arthroscopic) and cut one of the tendons close to the elbow and pull it down into the thumb joint area. They thread the cut end through the drilled hole and then coil the rest of the tendon up tightly and insert that coil into the space where the removed bone was. They also shortened the tendon on the inside of my left thumb because as the arthritis made my thumb joint hump up and push my thumb down that tendon lengthened to compensate, so it needed to be shortened. Fun times. Still, the pain right now is less than what I was dealing with on a daily basis. It's gonna be a while before I can draw that bow, though. The area they worked on is right where the grip rests when I shoot. I'm not complaining because I know a lot of people would be happy to have such minor problems. I'm just an active person who can't stand not being able to do much of anything because of something so minor.
Good luck and a speedy recovery. Only advice I can give you is to listen to and do EVERYTHING that the physical therapist tells you to do.
Actually, the way the surgeon was talking I won't have to actually go to physical therapy. He said early on that he would give me a list of exercises to do and I could do it myself. Here's hoping that's true.
I have had a shoulder repaired after I let it go way to long. Cannot draw more than 30 lbs in vertical bow position. Also had a total knee replacement. I had PT after both of them and trust me it is not the same as doing it yourself. If your Dr. will prescribe it, insurance will pay for it so by all means do the PT. You wont be sorry.
Well, the doctor wanted to do this last June. My first question was "How long until I can shoot a compound bow?" When he said "At least four months" I immediately told them to schedule it for March. There was no way I was going to miss any of bow season.
I had my six week post surgery follow-up today with the surgeon that performed the procedure on my left thumb. He said that I didn't have to wear a splint any more. In fact, he said that my only restriction was no "hard pinching activities". Okay, get your minds out of the gutter. I'm thinking that means no thumb against fingers to grip and lift. I asked him how long he thought it would be before I could shoot my bow again. He's not a hunter, so I explained to him where the bow grip would rest on my hand, being a right handed shooter, and told him it was 65 pounds of force. He actually said that in his opinion it would be "good therapy'. So, I guess I'm cleared to shoot again six weeks after surgery on my left thumb. I'll admit that I'm more than a little nervous about putting that kind of force on that "pieced together" joint right now, but he is a hand specialist at Campbell Clinic. I still feel like I should give it more time. In the meantime, like I told a buddy of mine, at least I'm cleared for two fisted drinking now. Oh, and I can type with two hands! Pretty cool.
