# Long Time Injury- Thoughts?



## twistedT (Aug 12, 2016)

In late January of this year (yes almost a year ago, now) I fell of the horse I was riding. I guess I didn't tighten the saddle enough, and I slipped off at a run. Not fun, but very grateful to have had the experience with minimal injury because now I know to always triple check my saddle even after warming up!

Let me define "minimal injury", though. The day of the fall I was a sore and my tailbone hurt. The next morning & the next couple of days, EVERYTHING was sore. In addition, I woke up to a hurting right wrist the morning after. I could still use the wrist and just ignore the pain, so I did. (I didn't really have a choice because I was working a weekend camp and still had two days left of being the only counselor for the campers.) Resting my body was not an option so I continued lifting saddles and riding all day because I didn't have an option and physically could. It hurt, but it was bearable. 

After a few days of rest (post-camp) I wasn't sore all over, but it still hurt to sit and my wrist still hurt. After several weeks I could sit without pain, and my wrist didn't hurt unless I pushed on it (think of doing a push up & the position your hand/wrist is that is how i pushed on it). Over the next several months I would occassionally push on my wrist to see if it still hurt and the majority of the time it did, sometimes just a little but it definitely still hurt. But again, this wasn't unbearable pain and my wrist/arm/hand/etc had never been swollen even the day of/week of the injury, so I figured it would eventually heal. (note: I really hate going to the doctor and being told they can't do anything for me, so because the pain wasn't as bad as right after fall, i figured it was healing)

My wrist was fine until winter came. I know that old, even healed, injuries can act up when cold weather hits, so when my wrist starting hurting the day my city got cold I didn't really think much of it (just about the pain:neutral But a couple days later, with my wrist hurting, I started wearing my mom's hand brace (that she has for carpal tunnel). It stopped me from moving my wrist and it hurting, but only when I wore it (which is only in the afternoons at home). This was four days ago, Monday, and my wrist has only seemed to get worse.

Today, it hurt to write, but again I could still push through the pain and write. So my mom is going to make an appointment, but I just want to hear some opinions. I can obviously still use it/function, but it hurts more everyday (probably because I'm not doing much to stop myself from using it). Until the appointment, I really am gonna try to not use it as much because it really does hurt, but its my right hand and I am right handed and I start exams tomorrow... But please share your thoughts as to what could possible going on with my wrist! Thanks for anyone who actually read all this!!


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## DannyBoysGrace (Apr 6, 2013)

The worst possible thing you can do when injured is to keep using the injured body part.

I'm physically disabled, my body aches all day every day, I constantly partially dislocate my joints (today it was my knee when I stepped in a hoof print) but when I slipped down a hill and landed funnily on my wrist, I was taken straight to the doctor and my mom (also manager) told me not to come in for work that day. Thankfully I missed doing damage (despite numbness, tingling and swelling) but I bet that if I had gone to work, I would still be suffering now.

You need to wear that brace all day until you go to the doctor. Don't worry about the exams, if the doctor gives a note, I'm sure they'll get somebody to write for you.


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## smrobs (Jul 30, 2008)

FWIW, I tend to do the exact same thing with injuries. Unless there is a major bone broken or arterial blood-spray that won't stop, I just fix it myself and keep working. It hurts and most stuff eventually heals, though it seldom heals correctly (at least according to my ankle, my ribs, and my right shoulder LOL).

My best uneducated opinion is that maybe you lightly tore a tendon or ligament in your fall and the cold weather (tenser muscles) combined with continued work is inflaming it. Or, you strained a tendon and are now developing tendonitis, which is a pain in the butt do deal with. I suppose it is possible that you had a fracture that never healed correctly, but IME, those tend to hurt pretty badly from the start.


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## beau159 (Oct 4, 2010)

Some things just take a long time to heal. 

I hurt my left ankle in March 2015 while snowboarding. I fell while coming off the lift. My body rolled down the little "hill" in front of the lift, but since my left foot was strapped to my board .... well ... snowboards don't lift. Miraculously, it never bruised up but we a little swollen and VERY sore for some time. All throughout the summer it would still bother me. In the fall, I had to wear a brace to play volleyball or it would hurt and I'd be limping the next day. It still bothered me with certain movements or motions a year later. Finally, a year and half later, I can play volleyball without the brace and without it bothering me. 

I did have it checked the fall of 2015 but since I was pregnant, we opted not to do an x-ray. Most likely, it was just a soft tissue injury. 

*Just like in horses  soft tissue injuries take a long time to heal.* Especially if you keep using the injured area (like an ankle or a wrist).


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## Cammey (Oct 3, 2016)

There are just too many options to really narrow it down, but a year is a long time to be nursing an injury like that. I'm all for toughing it out (if I wasn't I would be going to the doctor far too often, especially with my own joint issues) but if something has been dragging on for weeks and weeks or going through cycles of getting better/worse and you aren't sure what the cause in then it's time to at least get a diagnosis so you can intelligently decide what you want to do about it. Diagnosis on these things like this often requires an x-ray or scan, which you can't really access without a doctor - thus why it's worth going in. 

I agree with @smrobs in that the first things that come to mind are ligament or tendon injury - with a slight (but unlikely) possibility of a recurring stress-fracture. I'm definitely not an expert - just someone who's dealt with sports injuries. So I'm not saying these are what happened, just that those are what match the (pretty vague) symptoms you're describing. The thing is if it was the fracture it probably would have cleared up by now unless you're really re-injuring it constantly. But those ligaments and tendons that tend to be really a pain in a recurring fashion. 

Assuming you haven't really messed something up the treatment plan is probably going to be some variation of rest (possibly including a splint or cast) and physical therapy - either exercises or other treatments (ice/heat, etc.). The ugly thing about ligament injuries is that if you _really_ mess them up you can end up needing surgery to put them back into place - the longer they go on injured, the more likely that possibility can become. That's why it's usually worth really babying them when they first get injured, and going into a doc just so you know how much you can afford to push yourself. 

i've never looked at the doctor so much as the person I go to in order to get fixed (especially when it comes to sports injuries) but more the person I go to in order to get information so I can make intelligent decisions and recommendations as to how I want to deal with something. I do agree that there's no point going if it's not going to change anything - but it's at least good to at least know the risks you're taking so you can intelligently decide how hard you want to push yourself.


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## twistedT (Aug 12, 2016)

Thanks guys! I have appointment for the 19th, which kinda sucks because it's so far away, but at least I finally have one


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