Tendono-elitritis caused by punching injuries on both hands

[Udderdude]

You're not very bright, are you?

Likewise. I don't have a sense of humour when it comes to a condition that destroys peoples hobbies, or worse their careers. I'm glad that you can find some humour there - tell me, was it the old and so terribly hilarious masturbation style joke that I've heard a good few hundred times now, or some other form of laughing at others misfortune?

It's almost as funny as me firewalling you off from the forum for a week.

Oh no, wait - it's not nearly as funny as that.

What the fuck is wrong with you? I'm a classical musician, hand injuries are about the least funny thing to me possible, and they're something I work to avoid every day (both straight up injury and repetitive stress). Instead of giving me a chance to explain myself, you outright ban me from the forums? Fuck you. I found it funny that someone would ask advice for an injury gained by punching on a forum devoted to notoriously nerdy video games. It's a total non-sequitur and that's funny. But thanks for banning me so that I couldn't see why or explain myself, well done, you're certainly fit for your position. I'm not such an idiot that I would go "LOL hand injury!! Masturbation LOL!!!", but thanks for your completely cool and rational behavior.

BACKPEDDLING AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT.

[captpain]

No, that's what I thought was funny.

[ST Dragon]

I thought I should update this thread in order to be of some help to anybody that has experienced a similar problem.

So the exact English name of the problem / condition on my hands was:

Synovitis of the tendon sheath

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenosynovitis

As I mentioned in my first post, all types of treatments, Anti-inflammatory Medicine / pills, vitamins, physiotherapy, hand massage, alcohol rubs, Chinese Exercise Balls, Gell Stress Balls, swimming / water polo, had utterly no affect and the problem persisted for 1.5years!

At some point I decide to start doing some weights at the gym to increase the muscle mass of my biceps, triceps and shoulders for aesthetic reasons, so I followed a basic weight program with a wide variety of weight exercises of large / heavy weights, 4 sets of 8-12 repeats for each exercise, 2-3 times per week.
After 7 months I noticed the symptoms on my hands had subsided and within a year I could again play all types of games using keyboard, mouse, joypad & joystick, with minimum to no irritations.
Today I can verify that my hands have been cured and I can play games for very long time sessions with no problems (Very rarely there can be a slight irritation) and I continue going to the gym 2-3 times per week.

I do not have any specific exercises to recommend, as I was doing a combination of weight exercises and would rotate the program every 3 months, but I'm confident that the concentrated weight exercises on my arms did the difference as they made my arms stronger / bigger and somehow that helped to bypass the injury on my hands. Maybe it was also a combination of time healing factor, but who knows...

This is what worked out for me, but if anybody has anything to add on how to cure this pesky condition, Synovitis of the tendon sheath feel free to do so.

Thanks in advance.

[xris]

Punching stuff is hella fun! But, yeah if you try to hit something really hard you need to build up to it. Years of cracking wrist bones and beating on the tendons really makes them stronger. Once in awhile my hands will be kinda sore, but I just kind of ignore it and shake them out, open and close them a shit load of times. I work with my hands as well, so they have held up well, but it was because I put the effort into strengthening them. It does mean dealing with slightly broken hands though - broken finger joints take FOREVER to heal, last time I broke both joints on my ring finger on my dominate hand sucked. Should have worn a splint.. Shaking hands fucking hurt, and it is slightly crooked, doesn't close all the way.
Any kind of exercise really helps, open and close them really fast a couple hundred times, get a hand squeezy vice thingy, push ups, curls with 20+ lbs. I'm a big fan if ignoring it and pushing it too heal stronger though. My hands make funny clicking noises, and get sudden jolts of pain once in awhile, but I'm proud of that.
It's the damn tennis elbow I have from work that I dislike. Sore most of the time, and if you tap it in the right spot it goes all weird.
And, well a bunch of other things that don't work as well as I would like. It amazing how well adults hide the fact that you will end up living with constant pain from us as children.

[Ruldra]

If strengthening the hands solved the problem, maybe grippers could've done it in a much shorter time?



For such a small thing, it's a great workout for hand and forearm muscles. Just make sure you pick one that you can't close easily.

[Ed Oscuro]

That's fairly interesting, the Wiki description of "trigger finger" sounds quite a bit like the "catching" (halting / popping movement) I had in my left elbow for many years after falling on it (twice, too, but years apart). It's back to normal now, but it's nice to think that weights training shouldn't hurt it.

Also, I'm surprised that I didn't mention earlier that I had some experience (many years ago) with chiropractic, it's gained a pretty honestly deserved reputation for being useless quackery. I wouldn't state that the whole field is useless, or that all chiropractors are quacks, but the whole field appears to be less science-based than many other fields, and certainly has had less success rooting out phony treatments than other branches of medicine. Basically, it might be good, or you might pay a lot of money for nothing.

[Ex-Cyber]

That's fairly interesting, the Wiki description of "trigger finger" sounds quite a bit like the "catching" (halting / popping movement) I had in my left elbow for many years after falling on it (twice, too, but years apart). It's back to normal now, but it's nice to think that weights training shouldn't hurt it.

Also, I'm surprised that I didn't mention earlier that I had some experience (many years ago) with chiropractic, it's gained a pretty honestly deserved reputation for being useless quackery. I wouldn't state that the whole field is useless, or that all chiropractors are quacks, but the whole field appears to be less science-based than many other fields, and certainly has had less success rooting out phony treatments than other branches of medicine. Basically, it might be good, or you might pay a lot of money for nothing.

Or you might pay a lot of money to have your chiropractor cause this.

[Ed Oscuro]

Man, I'm gonna think twice before cracking my neck now...

It has been suggested that the relationship is causative,[7] but this is disputed by proponents of these treatment modalities,[7] who believe that the dissection is probably already present before people seek treatment.[9]

Yeah, that's definitely helping you out, chiro guys. "We're chiro, we don't need to investigate what's actually going on to start crackin' joints, but it'll be convenient to blame it later!"

[ST Dragon]

If strengthening the hands solved the problem, maybe grippers could've done it in a much shorter time?



For such a small thing, it's a great workout for hand and forearm muscles. Just make sure you pick one that you can't close easily.

Ah yeah, I had used that when I was trying various treatments, but it didn't seem to help much.
Maybe because they weren't tough enough and I could bend them fairly easily.

In the gym I also see various guys doing isolated weight exercises on the bench just for the fore-arms like the Barbell Wrist Curls:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arshmzg8CJ8

Reverse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... MkQ2VbZu5o

and with dumbells:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ac_qmBjkFI



I'm not sure which one is the best.

[ST Dragon]

Punching stuff is hella fun! But, yeah if you try to hit something really hard you need to build up to it. Years of cracking wrist bones and beating on the tendons really makes them stronger. Once in awhile my hands will be kinda sore, but I just kind of ignore it and shake them out, open and close them a shit load of times. I work with my hands as well, so they have held up well, but it was because I put the effort into strengthening them. It does mean dealing with slightly broken hands though - broken finger joints take FOREVER to heal, last time I broke both joints on my ring finger on my dominate hand sucked. Should have worn a splint.. Shaking hands fucking hurt, and it is slightly crooked, doesn't close all the way.
Any kind of exercise really helps, open and close them really fast a couple hundred times, get a hand squeezy vice thingy, push ups, curls with 20+ lbs. I'm a big fan if ignoring it and pushing it too heal stronger though. My hands make funny clicking noises, and get sudden jolts of pain once in awhile, but I'm proud of that.
It's the damn tennis elbow I have from work that I dislike. Sore most of the time, and if you tap it in the right spot it goes all weird.
And, well a bunch of other things that don't work as well as I would like. It amazing how well adults hide the fact that you will end up living with constant pain from us as children.

Well I think kids and teenagers have a much stronger healing factor than adults and I'm sure this specific injury would have passed within a few weeks when I was 15 years old, rather than all these years it took for me now that I'm 30+

[xris]

So am I. Part of healing is mental, don't treat yourself like a wounded kitten.

[Ruldra]

Ah yeah, I had used that when I was trying various treatments, but it didn't seem to help much.
Maybe because they weren't tough enough and I could bend them fairly easily.

Grippers are just like barbells, doing a lot of reps with a weak one won't really help (and wears out the spring). To really develop the muscles you need to do few reps with a strong gripper. I do believe a proper gripper could've solved your problem.

The Captain of Crush grippers are the best ones around, there are models for every strength. While a child can close the weakest CoC gripper, even world-class strongmen struggles to close the hardest one (CoC #4). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQg_-xGbyP4

I'm probably going to the US on december and I'm planning to get the CoC #1.