Advice on surgery

Kymbo79

Hi 👋🏻 some advice would be great please as I’m in an unusual situation…

I’m a 42yr old female prison officer and I’ve been going to my GP, ended up in A&E a few times etc for around 12yrs with severe pain in my thumb joints and back. It has only been recently that I’ve been referred for X-rays and MRI’s as I’ve moved to another area. It transpires that I’ve moderate to advanced degeneration in my hands and almost every vertebrae. I’ve had around 5 steroid injections, Naproxen and Amitriptyline over this time and I was told I had carpe tunnel, soft tissue damage etc but I now know it’s OA. I now have an Orthopaedic surgeon and he says the only treatment he can offer me is a trapeziectomy but my hospital won’t find it for someone my age and he doesn’t recommend it so I’m waiting for more steroid injections!

Has anyone had this op so young and would anyone recommend it? How can I manage my pain in the meantime? I struggle with my fine motor skills on a daily basis. Also, I would never of gone into my line of work if I’d known I had OA and have effectively sped the process up- can I hold anyone accountable for this? Nobody listened to me for years and it doesn’t look like I’ll have a career either way.

Brynmor

Hi @Kymbo79 welcome to the Online Community.

I understand that you have osteoarthritis in your hands and have been offered a trapeziectomy but the hospital won't fund it for someone your age - not something I have heard of before. Perhaps you can be referred to a different hospital by your orthopaedic surgeon?

We have some excellent information pages on hand and wrist surgery that may be helpful and there is a detailed leaflet available (from 2017):

trapeziectomy-factsheet.pdf

We also have information on managing hand and wrist pain - can attest to the use of heat packs as being really good for pain relief!

We have had quite a few threads regarding the operation. Here are some older conversations that may be worth checking out:

• @inlinedancer account of healing post-operation
• @Michelle63 who talks about before and after the operation

Best wishes

Brynmor

Kymbo79

Thanks. Sorry for the late reply, I didn’t get a notification… I was taking Amitriptyline for my back but I’ve stopped it due to feeling so rubbish in the morning. The only 2 vertebrae that aren’t arthritic are C1 and C2!

I’m just sick of feeling like this.

Brynmor

Hi. If you would like to talk to an advisor, we have a free Helpline who aim to bring all of the information and advice about arthritis into one place to provide tailored support for you.

Details can be found here:

https://www.versusarthritis.org/get-help/helpline/

they are well worth talking to 😀