I began to notice a pain in my right thumb. I did not think much of it and kind of took it easy on my thumb. Basically, giving it a rest to let it heal. But it did not heal. It was still bothering me when I went in for my annual checkup with my doctor. So I let her know that it was bothering me.
She examined my hands, pulling on each of my fingers and thumbs. I tried to not think about what she was doing because I was sure it going to hurt a bit when she got to my right thumb (she saved it for last).
When she pulled on my thumb, the pain was intense. I reflexively yelled and pulled my hand away. I did not realize how much it could hurt when I was not babying it.
She diagnosed it as De Quervain’s Tenosynovitis. I had never heard of that.
A tendon around a nerve near my thumb joint was swollen and inflamed, putting pressure on the nerve when I moved it.
She prescribed 800 mg ibuprofen to take care of the inflammation and a wrist guard to immobilize my thumb until the inflammation went down.
But the inflammation didn’t go down. I took large doses of ibuprofen for a month. It did not help. I stopped taking the ibuprofen and went back to see my doctor.
She said the next step would be to inject steroids into the trouble area to help. I was not really fond of that idea and held off on doing that.
It seemed like I was just going to live with De Quervain’s Tenosynovitis.
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