Friday 17 February 2012

Get knotted!

Quietude on the blog front. I am resting my wrist, I have a new brace which means everything I do using my right hand takes longer. Since my last blogging event, I have had more GP visits and one to a specialist physio.

I have a mild case of De Quervains Tenosynovitis, one of the two tendons in the thumb of my right hand is inflamed, this new brace immobilises the thumb. I've been recommended by the physio to have a cortisone injection directly into the wrist but my GP feels that may be a little premature.

Having been put off by reading about the side effects of steroid injections on-line, I'm in no hurry to have one of these. I'm not much worried by the milder ones such as temporary sweats, insomnia, flushing or discolouration of the injection site but long term tendon weakness, more pain than I'm in now and tendon rupture all sound too scary for me to contemplate considering at the moment it's no more than nuisance value pain most of the time apart from first thing in the morning when it can be quite bad. 

Apparently it's a self-limiting complaint which will eventually (12-18 months) get better of it's own accord with minimal treatment. I have an agreement with my GP that I will go and see him again in 2-3 weeks, in the meantime, we're trying wearing the new brace recommended by the specialist and taking maximum dose of anti-inflammatory tablets.

I had a half hour therapy session involving ultrasound and then cold laser treatment. If I were David Beckham or Andy Murray and had to get the tendon working again properly in superfast time, we'd be doing that 3 times a day but in the slower, much poorer lane, I think I'll just wait a bit ... £52 for half an hour is a bit beyond an artisan craft worker's means! :-)

Typing is a bit tricky (but not painful), in fact that's pretty much true of everything involving my hand at the  moment. As part of the resting therapy, I've not done any knitting or crochet for a month, I'm still working but as I said before, everything takes longer, good job it's a quiet time of year, I am avoiding memory wire and only done a teeny bit of hammering.

I've been looking for new things to do with jewellery whilst I get my wrist better and I downloaded a tutorial on making "love knots beads" from metal wire. I've been practicing making these in copper and here are some examples which I'll have on sale at my stall on All Saints Art & Craft Market in Cambridge tomorrow. 


I've also made some sterling silver ones which I've also combined with lampwork beads but you'll have to come along to the stall tomorrow to see these, the forecast is for rain in the afternoon so it'll be best if you all pop along in the morning!

Whether you can come to Cambridge or not tomorrow, have a great weekend!

1 comment:

  1. The knots look lovely, sorry to hear about your wrist.

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