So I’ve had carpal tunnel syndrome for years in left and right wrists, had symptoms etc but it finally got really bad late last year I guess on the right. I was in so much pain that I would wake up screaming in the middle of the night, no joke here, no exaggeration, I had to find funky sleeping positions just to be able to get a couple to maybe a few hours sleep because of the pain and sometimes I wouldn’t sleep at all.

 

My doctor refused to help me, he refused to give me any kinds of painkillers because of the whole opioid crisis going on which isn’t fair at all to people like me who are in so much unbearable pain. He tried to give me these different alternatives which did absolutely nothing and I told him that and then he even suggest medical marijuana which I refused. Sorry, I’ve not going to sit around the house getting high like some pot head, I don’t even drink, so yeah I’m not going to be sitting around smoking weed and I’m not even sure it would help.

The last option from him was to go to the pain clinic which I called and would have been four months before the first available appointment. That didn’t help me.

I knew I had to have surgery to fix it, but you can’t have surgery until you actually have tests done, so wait three months for the tests to show what we already know, yay! Ok, so good, test done, another three months wait for appointment to see the surgeon.

Went to see surgeon on a Monday with the test results, he saw how bad the results were and scheduled me for surgery on Wednesday, two days later. After the surgery he told me that I had one of the worst cases he had even seen in someone my age. The worst cases he said, yet my doctor REFUSED to prescribe me painkillers to help me. I was in agony for months and months and he refused to stop the pain because of ‘liability issues’. He didn’t say that, but I was told by other people I know in the medical field as to why doctors don’t prescribe painkillers anymore. So I had to suffer days and nights in agony and not sleep because other people got addicted and did things because they couldn’t control themselves.

So anyway, I had surgery on October 23rd and I’m still in a bit of pain, but not the kind of pain I was in before which is good. I still don’t have full use of my hand and my fingers are numb and tingling and it’s hard to type, making a lot of mistakes. Where the surgery was hurts and I can’t apply pressure there at all, and I can’t really use my hand that much. I was using my drill the other day to remove screws and I ended up is pain after only removing a few of them. Doctor said I should see improvement after four weeks and it’s past that, I really don’t see any improvement yet. I looked online and things say I could never get use back, or it could be six month to a year or longer, so I guess I just have to deal with it and see. I still have to go and have surgery yet on the left side, but I’m just waiting until the right gets better or the left gets worse, whichever comes first I guess.

Anyway, back to the surgery. I was awake for the surgery and I highly DO NOT recommend being awake for the surgery if you ever have to get it. Maybe it’s because my case was so bad, but surgery sucked. For whatever reason I have a high tolerance for the numbing agents they use, always have. As a chef I’ve cut a few things over the years, been to hospital, stitches etc, and they’ve always had to give me extra to numb the area. For the surgery they had to give me twice the normal amount and it still wasn’t enough really. I didn’t feel the surgery and all that but at the end I did feel one of the stitches going in, I felt the needle go in and the thread being pulled.

During surgery, since I was awake, I could hear everything obviously, and at one point the doctor/surgeon was like ‘wow, look at that, look at how red that is, look at how swollen that is’. At that point I was really wishing I would have been put to sleep instead of being awake.

When I have to go in and get the surgery for the left hand I’m requesting they put me to sleep, I’m not going through that again.

So yeah talking to the doctor/surgeon, being a chef and journalist really took it’s toll on my hands and/or wrists and now I’m paying the price for it in pain. I don’t think it was worth it, I don’t have much to show for it.