De Quervain's tendonytis

[indieakka]

I have been suffering from this since pregnancy (my DD is now nearly eight months old) and it just doesn't seem to be getting better. This morning my thumb tendon sort of spasmed and 'pinged' - it woke me up in agony. It doesn't feel totally 'snapped' as it kind of 'clicked' back eventually (sorry for the non technical terms!), but it has been so painful all day. I will be going back to the docs. But in the meantime I have two questions for you wise folks:

Does anyone have any advice for managing this condition please?

I understand that surgery can be an option but it has a long recovery period, with the hand largely out of use, which would NOT make looking gate the baby easy! Has anyone had this surgery and if so how was the recovery period?

Thanks!

Tendonitis! Not tendonytis! (Although when I first typed it it did auto correct to 'ten donuts' which I could actually do with to take my mind off the pain )

From this it doesn't look like a long recovery at all, and that a steroid injection is really effective

Really useful link thank you, much appreciated!

I got this when DS was about 4 months old. I had a steroid injection when he was 12 months old, and it has been painless since. That was 4.5 years ago.

I had it in my left wrist. It started when my son was a few months old. He is now 15 months and I am pregnant again. I have had the steroid injection three times and it is like a miracle! The pain goes within a day or two.

My only worry is that the condition may flare up again when I have the next baby. If it does I will have to be referred to the orthopaedic surgeons as they wont be happy to do the injection again.

I got it after a work injury and not resting it. After months of pain and not much work paid for me to see a physio. He did a mixture of massage and ultrasound therapy and gave me stuff to do at home and it was completely healed in less than a month and hasn't returned.