hand therapy brain dump
Yesterday I went to see my new hand therapist. After examining me and asking a lot of questions, it became clear that it's not tendonitis in my wrist (like my house doctor thought). The physiotherapist said it's caused by my hypermobile joints. With my work, my hobbies and sports, my wrists and fingers get strained. More than with people that are not hypermobile, and that causes pain because they have to work extra hard to keep everything together. And when the metaphorical bucket is too full, it gets overloaded.
He told me I was on the right path with wearing a brace and that I should keep doing that. Not as aftercare, but as prevention. And more as I'm doing now. So when I know I have to lift heavier things, already use it.
We will start a treatment plan now and I have to do daily exercises with a hand trainer. The idea is to get a higher load capacity for my wrist, but not overload it.
One other thing he advised me to look into, is EDS (Ehler Danlos syndrome). There are so many types, and I definitely have symptoms that fit to 2 of them. He recommended to get tested to see which form I have. Because if I know what form of EDS I have, there might be treatment options that I haven't tried yet.
My 'you are hypermobile' diagnose I got almost 20 years ago and at the time I was sent home with 'you just have to learn to live with it'. No recommendations about what to do with it, what things belong to being hypermobile, no help really. So that's what I did, I tried to live with it and just figured stuff out myself.
Reading about the different types now makes me realize I have symptoms that I never connected to being hypermobile before. So I can see why it would be good to get tested. That's the next step!