To fuse or not to fuse my wrist

GordonF

Hi all. New member struggling with the decision to fuse my wrist. I’m a 44 year old male. I’ve had rhumetoid since I was 12. It messed up my feet pretty good as a teenager but I get around pretty good now and the biggest trouble I have is in my wrists. Both have partial natural fusion of the carpals. The left is basically pain free with severely limited mobility, stab in the dark let’s call it 20 degrees of mobility. The right is in constant pain and has probably more like 5 degrees of mobility. I’m a right dominant ambi and I’ve learned to do most things lefty. I have very limited strength. I have difficulty unlocking my deadbolt or lifting a gallon of milk. I’ve given up my motorcycle. I haven't ridden my mountain bike for a couple years. I stopped playing music. I don’t really work out. I’ve been trying to rectify this lately so I do go to the gym but every day is leg day. After my 3d surgical consult the consensus is that all other options have been exhausted, my wrist is collapsed and fusion is the next step, but it’s a big deal and very final and should be put off as long as possible. “Well how does one make such a decision?” “Well, when your partner says let’s go do a thing and you say no I can’t my wrist and your kid say let’s go do a thing and you say no I can’t my wrist and you’re sick of dealing with that…” OK, but I’m already not doing the small handful of things that make life enjoyable so now it feels like I’m just waiting for something aweful to happen, so I hurt more, as a deciding factor or something. I just worry I’ll do the surgery and still have pain, or new pain because now my wrist doesnt move at all, and I still won’t be able to do the things I want to do, now with added rehab and physical limitations. I feel really lost and alone, despite having an extremely supportive partner. I just feel like at the end of the day, I’m the one living with this and most people can empathize but not truly understand. I guess I’d like to hear about peoples experience with fusion and their abilities, post operation. Is it likely that I could cycle, operate a motorcycle, play bass guitar etc, knowing that I was already doing those things with very limited mobility? Are things bad enough to consider something so drastic? Because I’m not experiencing pain all the time. It’s there all the time, but I only REALLY experience it in moments of over stress. At rest, yeah if I think about it, it hurts but I don’t generally think about it so I’m not really EXPERIENCING the pain per se, if that makes any sense at all. I dunno. I just feel thrown to the wolves with a massive, life altering decision and no good criteria with which to make such a call. :(

remmingtonwildhunter

I had my r,wrist fused in 95 and left in 2005 after getting knocked of my motor bike im 59.still garden ride my push bike and do some of my other stuff..

Like you im r ,handed no grip strengh but worst thig for my job was opening gates,but nest thing i did was get the fusion so the opp intails the illac crest (hip joint) top off used to fuse the joint plate screws an about 40 clips in plaster about 4-6 weeks...

You will have a bowman sling if you can get a trypod behind the bed to geep your wrist up at nite,hardest thing is you have to run you thumb down each of your fingers from top to bottom hurts like hell..

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claudsl

Hi @GordonFellis and welcome to our online community!

Sorry to hear you are going through this, it does sound like a big decision to have to make. I don't have much knowledge on this particular topic so all I can suggest it to make a list of all he pros and cons and that might help to make a decision. Hopefully someone who has been through this can give you some better advice from their own experience. Here is a link which might have some useful information:

Hand and wrist surgery | Treatment options | Versus Arthritis

All the best, Claudia x

GordonF

@remmingtonwildhunter,

Do you still not have grip strength or are you talking pre-surgery? I’m really hopeful I’ll get some grip strength back. I guess my optimistic outcome would be that I’m able to ride my pedal bike and lift some weights at the gym. I’d love to play my bass guitar again and I really miss motorcycles. When I ask the doc how one makes such a final decision she said basically: you’re right to be skeptical, questioning and hesitant. Your wrist is basically destroyed. You WILL have a fusion but I’d put it off as long as possible. I’d do it during summer because it’ll be easier to not put on a coat a boots in a sling. As far as when, when your partner says, hey let’s do this thing, and your kids say let’s do this thing, and you’re sick of saying, I can’t do that with my wrist. It’s been like 3 years since I performed on stage. I’m a musician. That’s my life blood. I can’t ride my bike. I can’t work out which is bad for my already deteriorating mental health. Like, I think I NEED to do this because I’ve already stopped ALL THE ACTIVITIES that I enjoy, so I sit around frustrated and depressed, struggling to decide to make a permanent modification to my body, which I truly don’t want to do. I fear things wont improve. I fear some things may get worse. I fear fear fear and struggle struggle struggle and frankly, it’s killing me.