Wrist Surgery - Please help

AlisonK

AlisonK

Cathlete
This question is for Cathe or anyone else out there who can help me out with some suggestions. I am having surgery to remove a ganglion cyst from my wrist and I have some questions.

I'm kinda down about the fact that I won't be able to lift weights for 6-8 weeks:-( but Im trying to look on the postive side about what I can do to maintain my fitness level during this recovery time. I know that as soon as I feel up to it I can resume all my cardio workouts so my question is what kinds of things could I do to prevent as much loss of strength as possible? Would doing floor work cause any sort of imbalance in the strength of the muscles Im using vs. the ones I can't use?

I thought of using the strength tapes and doing some of the work just without weights and doing alot more reps. Would this be effective? Also what types of cardio will help maintain the strength in my legs the most? I plan to use Cardio Kicks to work a little upper body. Any suggestions that any of you have for workouts I could do without putting weight or pressure on my wrists would be great! I have almost all of Cathe's tapes if that helps. If there are any other non Cathe I could buy one or two as well. I actually thought of taking out my old Buns of Steel tape for a chuckle:p I also have a treadmill and a recumbant bike so I do run and bike one or two days per week to crosstrain.


I really really appreciate any suggestions or advice you all have. I have had several setbacks over the last few years and I really want to do all I can this time to keep progressing as opposed to just waiting and starting over again.

Also, has anyone else had this surgery? What was the recovery time like?

Thanks so much you all are so helpful and supportive. I'm so thankful to have all these great Cathe workouts to pick from and all of you to turn to for advice and support! :)

Alison
 
Hi Alison,
I didn't have surgery, but I broke my wrist in January and had to take 6 weeks off from lifting. I was very upset about it and really thought I would lose a lot of strength, but I didn't - I was able to progress very quickly when I started lifting again.
The only strength work I did was floor work for lower body. Mainly PS legs, Firm - lower body split and sculpted buns, hips & thighs, and Karen Voight - Great Weighted Workout. I was soooo sick of floorwork at the end of the 6 weeks!!
I probably can't help you much with cardio - I broke my tailbone at the same time and had to modify a lot for that. I think Cardio Kicks would have been very hard to do for a while because there is so much upper body work. And I think running would have been difficult at first also because of the impact. I think you will have to take it slow at first and work your way up in impact until your wrist heals.
Hope this was helpful.
Good luck with your surgery!
Erica
 
Hi Alison --

Sorry to hear about your surgery but glad you're getting your wrist cared for. This will all be over before you know it.

I'd be careful with Cardio Kicks -- it might be tempting to do some of the punches, but those are very dynamic motions and even balling your hand into a fist in the en guarde position might cause you to flex your wrist inappropriately. Better to be safe and let it heal completely.

As for lower body, it sounds like you've got lots of good options for maintaining good cardio while also maintaining good muscle tone. You might not build much new or additional strength running or doing a recumbent bike, but you'll definitely stay toned and fit. If your recumbent bike has adjustable tension you can definitely get some quad and glute work going -- and if you can run or walk in a hilly area or on an inclined treadmill, you'll get some quad and glute work from that as well.

On floor leg work, I'd also be careful -- a lot of times floor leg work requires you to stabilize yourself with your hands or arms in some way, and you don't want to do that to your wrist.

I guess overall I'd say just try not to worry too much about this. Eat well, take your calcium and vitamins so you'll heal quickly, do cardio as you feel like it and pamper your wrist. You'll be pleasantly surprised at how quickly you'll regain all your pre-surgery strength -- but be really careful coming back into your upper body work, especially on exercises that tend ot stress the wrists like biceps curls, bench presses for chest and triceps, triceps french press and triceps dips, not necessarily in that order!. EASE back into those!

Feel better soon and keep us posted!

Kathy S.
 
Hi Alison,
I'm sorry to hear about your ganglion. I can sympathize with you. I also had a ganglion cyst removed from my right wrist in 1993. My recovery went something like this:

Week 1: it hurt so badly that I couldn't even think about doing any workouts at all--all I could think about was the pain and how to get around using my left hand only. (I am right-handed). So you won't have to worry about the first 6-7 days or so because you probably won't feel like doing anything anyway.

Weeks 2-3: was still in quite a bit of pain, but started to get antsy... did not like writing with my left hand and started doing cardio workouts like running and stairmastering where my wrist would stay completely stable. The splint helped to stabilize and was a constant reminder to be careful. Also, I recall at that time exercising to Gilad in the morning and he did a lot of leg lifts and shoulder rotation type exercises without weights that helped keep my muscles from atrophying too much.

week 4-6: could start lifting light weights. My doctor encouraged light use of the wrist at this point to start getting it more mobile and flexible again.

Weeks 7-8: could lift heavier weights again, but could not, and still to this day, can not do pushups, tricep dips, or any exercise that stresses the wrist in a flexed position because the pain comes back.

Now, I am just careful with my ganglion wrist. Actually, my left wrist has tendonitis and that one hurts much worse when I put pressure on it, so my surgery was about as successful as it could be! I hope yours is too! Let me know how you make out. When is your surgery scheduled for?

Good luck!
Cruncholi
 
Thank you so much Erica, Kathy and Cruncholi! Your posts are so helpful to me and exactly what I was looking for. I really appreciate the time you took to respond.


Cruncholi: Thank you so much for sharing your story with me. I really had no idea what to expect. My surgery is actually scheduled for tomarrow! I am not looking forward to it but I definitely look forward to getting use of my wrist back. It has gradually been getting more and more painful and Im losing more use of it every week. Im a little more fortunate then you were because it's my left wrist and Im right handed. However I think I may have a similar problem to yours in that I think I have some tendonitis in my right wrist now (maybe from overdependence on it? )

I'm sure I won't be posting much after tomarrow for a few days until I feel better but at least I can use my right hand to work the mouse and read posts :) If you don't mind answering some more questions I have about how you do certain things Cruncholi maybe I can post again after I recover some?

Thanks to all of you again I really appreciate your help and wise advice! :)

Alison
 
Alison,
Feel free to post some more, or you can e-mail me at [email protected]. I hope your surgery was successful today and that you are not in too much pain:)

I forgot to mention to you that my initial pain the first week was worsened because I am hypersensitive to drugs like valium that they gave me before surgery. So, I basically came home from the hospital and then slept for two days straight without waking up to take the Tylenol3 my doctor prescribed. So, I was fresh out of surgery with no pain med for two days! Ouch!

Hopefully that does not happen to you!

Take it easy,
Cruncholi
 
I just went to the doctor last week because I have a 'knot' on my wrist. The 'knot' only hurts if I mash down on it. Some days it looks a little larger than other days, especially if I've stressed it by lifting weights or by doing push-ups.

My doctor diagnosed it as a ganglion cyst and offered several treatment methods. The first was surgery, with a similar recovery period to what you desribed. The second was to withdraw the fluid with a long needle. The last option was to leave it alone if it's not bothering me (which it isn't), so this is the option I've chosen.

My question to anyone who has ever had a ganglion cyst....
1) Did your doctor give you these same options?
2) Do you think I should get a second opinion?
 
I had a ganglion cyst on the inside of my right wrist, and was given the same list of options...was able to go for several years without it bothering me (other than appearance -- weird lump!). The next option I tried (after the cyst was big enough to interfere when I used the computer mouse) was draining (kind of gross, but not painful because they numb the area). The cyst was reduced in size, but always grew back. So I had it drained again, they injected steriods (apparently they've succeeded in eliminating ganglions this way, but not mine), etc., for a few years. Eventually, though, the doctor told me that the cyst wall was thickening (scar tissue) and she wouldn't be able to drain it forever. So I scheduled surgery -- my last resort, in large part because of the impact it was likely to have on my workouts. (Plus, there's no guarantee that the cyst will stay away with surgery, either.)

Luckily, my doctor put me in a partial cast/splint type thing for only 10 days (a long 10 days!). Also, he didn't require me to lay off exercise for anything like 6 - 8 weeks! He told me to avoid lifting weights for 2 - 3 days, after that I could start lifting light as I felt comfortable. Cardio was ok with him after the first 24 hours, as long as I felt ok. I was lucky, I had virtually no pain after surgery (only took one of the prescribed Tylenol 3 as a precaution the first night...didn't want to wake up in pain at 2 am...but I didn't even need that). I did just what he said, listened to my body (even more closely than usual) and I'd say I was back lifting comfortably at my pre-surgery levels within a month. Of course, modification was necessary on some exercises (notably bicep curls with rotation, tricep dips, push ups, etc.) more than others because of strain to my wrist. (I still modify a little on push-ups...I still have some sensitivity unless I position my hands just right. Note that I had this problem pre-surgery, too.)

Its been almost 3 years and the cyst hasn't come back! I don't know why my doctor didn't require such an extensive recovery period -- but I'm glad. Everyone's experience seems to be different, and obviously the doctors' advice varies...I would say listen to your doctor (and shop around or get a second opinion if you don't like what you're hearing) and listen to your body during the recovery. Good luck!! (Sorry this is so long!!)
 
Hi,
I have heard other people ganglion recovery periods that have been more similar to Jodi's than mine. Two things to keep in mind: First, I had surgery in 1993 and the procedures have developed some since then so that recovery is not so painful. Second, my "roots" of my ganglion were tangled up with the tendons in the wrist and pressing on the nerves, which apparently makes a big difference in your level of pain both before and after surgery. My wrist would hurt so much even before surgery that it would sometimes wake me up in the middle of the night.

One other thing, I lived with my ganglion for 8 years before I ever went to the doctor to have it checked, because it never bothered me. (In fact, I could whack it with a hardcover book and it would disappear for a few days and then return!) About a year later, I did have mine drained twice, but it kept coming back. When the pain got so bad, I had the thing removed!

So many variables!
Take care,
Cruncholi
 
if you wouldn't mind keeping us up-to-date on your recovery, i would greatly appreciate it. i am actually going in for the same surgery in a month and besides being apprehensive about surgery in general, i have just found out that i have tricep muscles. i don't want to lose them but i know i will need to rest my arms. i figure i will concentrate on cardio during the recovery period...
if you don't want to post to the whole group, you can just email me at
[email protected]

thanks, diane
 
Hi everyone.. I made it through :-jumpy

Thanks sooo much for all your thoughts and wishes :) Let me give you a quick update and try to answer a few questions. I probably would have been back sooner had it not been for me getting the stomach flu two days after I had the surgery :-tired

As of now Im doing well. My forearm and part of my hand is in a brace that I cannot remove. It's driving me absolutely crazy since it's hot and itchy but Im so thankful to have it because it really stablizes my wrist well so I dont feel nearly as much pain as I would otherwise. I was able to stop taking pain medicine by the second day although if I bump it or press on it or move it too much it really hurts. It also gets sore when I try to do too much (but being a stay at home mom of a three year old and the owner of a brand new puppy it's almost impossible not to overdo it hehe)

I really don't know yet what I will be allowed to do as far as working out until I go see my orthopedic surgeon on Thurs. Hopefully I will get this brace off and be able to do more! For now the only excercise I was told I could do until I see the Dr. is walking or my recumbant bike if I keep my sling on to keep my arm stable. I feel like such a slug!!

I do agree with Cruncholi I think these cases vary so much. Mine started as pain and I never even got more than a small lump but the pain just got increasingly worse and worse. The Dr. did an MRI in Jan. of this year and nothing showed so he gave me a cortizone shot which helped only for a few weeks then the pain came back much worse. He did another MRI last month which showed the cyst very clearly then. It was so painful and was limiting my ablity to use heavy weights and also just to do general everyday things that I needed surgery. But because he had to remove the roots and stalk that were really imbedded in my wrist I think it's going to be a recovery similar to what Cruncholi went thru.

Wow Im rambling :-wow Thank you all so much for being so supportive. I will definitely be happy to keep you posted on my recovery Diane and have no problem answering any questions anyone has about the surgery or anything else. I will check back and maybe take you up on your offer to email you Cruncholi when I get my doctor's instructions this week.

Alison
 
Alison,
I'm glad the surgery went well! Sorry to hear about your flu. Now it's time to recover. I know what you mean about feeling stir crazy. Hang in there.
Cruncholi
 
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