January 17

Since there’s not a lot of posts/blogs/forums/stories online about casting treatment for a TFCC tear (read: there aren’t any), I decided to document my experiences here.  Besides, I’m sure some of my readers are curious as well.  All the posts will be categorized with the tag “TFCC Tear Treatment” if you want to find the entire saga easily.

You see, all the info online that I can find, even the stories of others with this malady, have had the surgery or scheduled one.  I haven’t found anyone in a cast for non-surgical treatment, but as I understand, that’s the default treatment.  If the TFCC cannot heal itself, then you get the surgery.  But I haven’t found anyone who’s healed with casting alone.

So we’ll see if this works.  If anyone reading has found my site and healed with casting and physical therapy let me know!  I’d love to hear your story.

Okay, so not quite one week in my full-arm cast and I can safely say this is a pain.  Showering is an adventure with trash bags and duct tape, and yes, I have fashioned for myself a wire hanger itch-scratcher.  I’ve bent the wire in half so it looks like an elbow, I’m not ripping up the padding in my cast, don’t worry about that.

My doc’s office didn’t give me a sling so after a few days of intense pain at holding it up, (I was crying, making my kids cry in the process) I went out and bought one myself–The Ultimate Arm Sling, if you must know.  Aside from that, the Aleve wasn’t doing anything for me.  since it seems as if my doc’s office is determined to torture it’s patients, they said to try Ibuprofen with some scattered Tylenol and some Vit-C, as Vit-C has been shown to help speed healing (I guess).

The sling has helped A LOT, but the cast is so heavy, it hurts my neck to wear it all the time.  When I’m sitting I prop it on a pillow and when I’m doing chores, I’ll wear it.

The Ibuprofen and Tylenol seem to have helped better with pain management than the Aleve.  Of course the sling is also a big help.  When you’re holding up the cast with just your arm muscles, it would seem you are also engaging the ligaments in your wrist, as mine was on fire after just a couple of errands.  So be wary of that if you have this injury with a big heavy cast.  The point of the huge full-arm cast with the bent elbow is to prevent supination of the wrist, or twisting your arm to look at your palm.  But it’s so hot and uncomfortable!

I get this cast off on February 9th, and after that is PT, so we’ll see what happens afterward.  I’m wondering if the casting is nothing more than a “smoke screen” for health insurances to cover the surgery, to prove they did “conservative” treatment first.  I seriously have not found any stories of anyone in a cast for a TFCC tear.  Everyone with a story online talks about surgery.

Here’s hoping this works for me.  I have no idea how big my tear is, but I’ve got to wonder if it got bigger over time, as my pain before I went to the doc was getting worse, not better…  My fingers and strength in my left hand are so weak now.  I don’t know if that’s because the cast is preventing the wrist to compensate for their weakness or what, but just taking the lid off the gallon of milk is a chore.  I can’t hold on to anything to chop for dinner, either.  Not just because its awkward, but because there’s no strength.  And when I try to hold something harder, I feel my wrist pop and slide, like the bones aren’t stable.

That’s a bit scary for me.  I have just over three weeks in this thing and I’m only feeling a little worse than when I got it on–with the strength in my hand, and the bone popping.  (Gross, I know)

Anyway, I don’t know if I’ll need a brace after the cast but probably, considering I’ll need the PT.

People online talk about how you don’t really heal 100% from this injury, about how your wrist will always be weak.  Mine’s been weak since I was 13, now it’s gonna be even moreso?  I’m 35 now and already falling apart.  Lovely.

Until the next update.

~~Becka