Originally Posted by Beadingmypassion

Sunflower, I'm so sorry you are having to deal with this very painful experience.

When I wrote my first post I was, obviously, in a state of great despair. All the medical professionals I was dealing with offered little hope for a full recovery, in fact they were downright gloom and doom! And right after I posted a family situation occurred which required a great deal of time and energy from me, so I just never got back to updating my status. I'm also a very private person (my Facebook page has my name, and that's about it) so I was probably not of a mind to bare my soul anymore than I had, and also I had little response to my post, for whatever reason, so I simply put it out of my mind.

But I have good news to report: I am totally recovered! Today it is exactly 9 months since I broke both bones in my right (dominant) wrist. I have two plates and numerous pins holding everything together, but you'd never know it to look at it from the outside. I have regained all normal feeling and coordination in my right hand, and seldom experience any pain in that hand or wrist (and when I do, it's usually because I've overworked it, or haven't done my therapy exercises for a couple of days).

There have been four primary things I've done to achieve this level of recovery: 1) therapy exercises - one part the exercises prescribed by the OT I met with for about 5 weeks, and one part exercises I added through research and trial-and-error; 2) consistency - every single day, twice a day for the first 5 months, now at least once a day, doing my exercises; 3) self-advocacy - if you think you're not getting adequate treatment, or you think the treatment is inappropriate to your situation, you must speak up and/or go after what you need; and 4) don't give up! I've lost count of the number of times, over the past 20 years, when doctors or other health professionals have told me "you'll never be able to do (this or that) again". I'm happy to say I've proven them wrong in every instance. Luck or self-determination? Maybe some of both, but as I've been a widow for 20 years raising two special-needs kids while battling my own health issues, I felt I didn't have a choice - I could give up and lose control of my life, or I could fight the good fight and recover to the best of my ability.

I felt my OT was inadequate and, at times, dismissive of my concerns. So I stopped OT and built my own therapy program, part that which was prescribed and the other part based on researching therapy sites on the internet and trying out different things. Once I had a list of things that I thought were appropriate for me, I made myself follow through.

A significant issue for me was the pain and numbness, plus swelling which both my surgeon and therapist ignored. When I started driving, and the weather was cold, I bought a pair of inexpensive one-size-fits all stretchy knit gloves (Perri's Magic Gloves, One Size) which kept my hands warm and also gripped the steering wheel better, as they had sticky dots on the palms and the palm-side of the fingers. They also provided some compression, which felt good, so I looked for compression gloves on Amazon. I found Isotoner compression gloves (Isotoner Full Finger Therapeutic Gloves, only $19.25), and wow, what an improvement. Within a week of wearing those gloves the swelling decreased and for the first time in 4 months I started to get good tingles of feeling back in the numb thumb and two fingers.

By the end of the 5th month, I'd been doing my revised therapy twice a day and wearing the compression glove as often as possible (removed it for therapy). My thumb and the two effected fingers had partial feeling back, and the pain was greatly reduced.

By the end of the 7th month, I had full feeling back in my whole hand, the swelling was gone, and the pain in my wrist almost totally gone. I learned that I had to be careful not to over-do, and if I missed a therapy session I started to hurt, but not nearly like it had been. It was at this time that I dared to pick up beads, needle and thread, and voila! I was back to my beadwork! Yahoo!

I forgot to mention that while I was still in a cast I went online and ordered an automatic jar opener (Hamilton Beach Open Ease Automatic Jar Opener) and a one-handed can opener (Smart Touch Handheld Electric Can Opener, maybe you've seed ads for them on TV). Since I live alone I knew I'd need them, especially since cooking was going to be a problem for awhile and things like canned soup, fruits and vegetable were sure to be part of my diet until I could shop and cook normally.

I also bought a set of foam tubing for inserting handles of cutlery and other tools (Ableware Closed Cell Foam Tubing, Bright Color Assortment, $15.00) as for the early months I simply could not hold so much as a fork or knife, and even as I improved it was painful to hold anything and the large diameter of these tubes made it possible to do so. Even now, I've got foam tubing covers on some of my beading and needlework tools, and that's been a great help in making it possible for me to return to normal activity. Even though I can hold onto things without that assist, the tubing reduces the stress and makes it possible for me to work longer. So, total cost for gloves and adaptive equipment: $80 over a 4-month period. Not a bad investment in making it possible to recover to a normal life.

Today I adjusted my contact settings to accept private messages and friend requests directly in my email. I've accepted your friend request as well. Feel free to contact me directly. There's so much more I could have included in this post, but I didn't want to overdo it!

Forgot to mention, my left hand, which got over stressed doing righty's work, and which, of course, the doc said would never get better, is in the best working order in the past 20+ years, as I did all the same therapy with it that I did for the broken right. I have carpal tunnel in the left as well, but the exercises have improved that a lot, and I seldom have pain or numbness in the left any more. A nice side bonus!

In the meantime, best wishes it your recovery. Keep in touch as it suits you.