De Quervain

Such a fancy, European sounding thing! Sounds like a quiche or something innit? Unfortunately the real thing is a pain in the ass, or rather, pain in the thumb / wrist / hand.

“De Quervain's syndrome is a painful condition that affects tendons where they run through a tunnel on the thumb side of the wrist.” (source :  http://www.bssh.ac.uk/patients/conditions/19/de_quervains_syndrome)

My thumbs and wrists started hurting about a week plus ago. It started on one side but within 2 days both hands/wrists took turns being really painful. Certain activities would trigger sharp, stinging pains in the thumbs and the entire area between the thumbs and the wrists : tying my hair, shampooing my hair, lifting the baby, trying to do a thumbs up..essentially all manners of activities requiring movements of the opposable thumbs – which is the majority of activities!

I was ignoring the pains and soldiering on initially, praying that it’d go away on its own (they never do, why have I not learnt this by now?!) but it shows no sign of subsiding. In fact the pain gets so bad sometimes that I am not even confident of lifting the baby (right after I wake up / get awoken by baby and need to attend to him) and have to wake the husband up to carry the baby for me.

Today afternoon did it for me. Both baby and I were taking a nap, and he woke up crying, but my wrists were so painful that I took a long time to carry him to feed him, terrified that I’d drop him. Eventually I managed to ignore the pain long enough to lift, feed and changed him, and called up a nearby clinic to get it seen to asap. There was still some time before they closed, so I bundled the baby up into the body carrier and walked across the street to the clinic. The baby was spitting up milk along the way, it was drizzling, and I didn’t know if there was anyone in the clinic to help me watch the baby while I got the hands seen to – but everything worked out. I got diagnosed, the therapist dispensed treatment and advice, and we both got home safe and sound.


I went and got thumb splints to keep the affected area supported and immobilised.



Mobility would be in issue with these – but I’ll have to do what I can to let them heal and not get worse. Difficult with a small baby around, but it’ll be terrible if I never heal from this.


Fingers crossed! (this doesn’t require the opposable thumbs so I can do them with wanton abandonment!)

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