UKC

I am wondering if anyone can help me.
When I was in hospital 11 weeks ago, the midwife tried to insert a drip into my hand, but got it wrong. She then pumped lots of saline in and only stopped when I was screaming that it wasn't working. My hand was then totally swollen with excess water.

Now, 11 weeks later my hand is still very sore, there is a lump on the outside, I can't close it to a fist and the outer three finger joints are sore (where they meet the hand. I have problems cutting things with a knife, holding onto things like bags etc

I showed it to 2 GPs who only said: hmm, weird, not sure, we'll keep an eye on it (very helpful...) so I am asking the font of knowledge that is Ukc if anyone can help. I need my hand !!!

Can anyone help, what is it, what can I do?

In reply to Heike:

As a totally unmedical person I can remember seeing om TV how chickens can be pumped full of water, if the water's made your hand muscle swell up maybe it could be squashing your finger joints?

Could it be interesting to a teaching hospital, maybe you'd get seen and treated quickly with something like that, if the medical staff could show students what can happen if you don't fit a drip properly? People who work with bodies seem to find things like that quite interesting.

If it was my hand i'd maybe try rubbing the bit of the hand where the drip went into, but that might be the wrong thing to do.

Cheers
Tim

In reply to Timmd:

Yeah, if only there was one close by. Good idea. Initally I thought exactly what you have thought, but it's now 11 weeks and it still hasn't got any better. Some of the water/swelling is gone, but there is now a hard lump in its place....

In reply to Heike: I've no idea. It sound's most odd.

I'm the sort of person who often like's to get stuck into sorting things out to do with my body (or can't leave things alone as my mum sometimes put's it), have you tried seeing what happen's if you try moving your fingers a lot? Or googling about it?

Tim

In reply to Heike:At least i'm bumping your thread further up, anyway.

In reply to Heike:

It's unlikely to be excess fluid in your hand. Unless the lymph glands are damaged, your body will get rid of the fluid within a couple of days at most and usually quicker. If done repeatedly, injecting fluid can be used to expand tissues, but if it was only a one off occurrence it would have been painful at the time but it wouldn't have lasted this long.

I'm not sure what it would have been though. I think you need to find a more helpful doctor I'm afraid!

Yeah, I know that's not really helpful but at least it is bumping your thread!

In reply to Timmd:
I have tried massaging it and wiggling my fingers lots, didn't help.

I have tried Nurofengel, too, no joy.

I am scared it might stay this way......

Haven't tried googling as it's so unspecific.

In reply to kathrync:
That's what I thought, too. But then the first GP said ( after 8 weeks) said, 'oh, these things can take a long time to sort themselves out...' (interrpet: I haven't got a clue and hopefully it will be gone next time I'lll see her)


So, I am waiting....

In reply to Heike:

Well, good luck!

In reply to Heike: I wonder if there was excess swelling and pressure in your hand, that it's put too much pressure on any peripheral nerves and possibly damaged them a little? <you'd think that would be easy enough for a GP to figure out though> I know that when the nerves to the hand are damaged it can be hard to hold onto things, or have fine muscle control. But I would have thought with any nerve damage in your hand, you'd have feelings of numbness or pins and needles etc that go with it.

I'd go back to your GP and tell them how important it is you have your hand fully functioning. Tell them you're a new mother and it's getting you down, and also that you are an athlete and it's affecting your performance. See if they can't refer you on to a specialist who might actually have a clue about what is going on? If you are having trouble grasping things, then something isn't right. And 11 weeks is a long time.

<that's just what I would do though>

Hope you get it sorted!

i had my knuckles have a similar problem with a snowboard accident in that liquid built up around the joints to then solidify. although the fluid in my hand wasn't injected i think maybe any fluid has the same effect.

i couldn't move my fingers properly for a while but it has gone down over the past two years almost to how it was.

sounds annoying two years, but i think it should be fine.

hope that helps

josh

In reply to Heike:

Get pictures of it and stick them on here or Flikr and then contact your doctor and ask if he is going to do something about it.

Actually, go back to the hospital and ask for the consultant in charge of the department you were in, saying you may be making a complaint and maybe suing if it isn't sorted quickly. It is possible they damaged something or it may be a ganglion. They used to remove them by hitting with a heavy bible!

I just remembered slapping a nurse who did the same to my wife, putting a canula into an already swollen arm. I had forgotten all about it till now but remember my wife crying in pain though almost unconscious.

In reply to Heike:

Some of the symptoms present like Carpal Tunnel Syndrome which I believe,for instance,can be beought on by excess fluid in pregnancy. But as already stated I think it goes when the fluid drains.

In reply to SonyaD:
That was what i intended to do when I saw the last GP a couple of weeks ago, but he kind of ignored my pleas and just said what I had originally posted and send me away...it felt like, 'well you are not about to die, so what's the problem.'

In reply to alan edmonds:
I don't think that's it. It is around the injection site, and there is no tingling etc

In reply to sutty:
It might be an idea to go back to the hospital! The women who did it had four attempts of putting a canula with only one working in the end, they also left them all in, so I had several dangling from my arms and hands - I was black and blue afterwards, but it all healed up apart from the one on my hand!

In reply to Ralphie_coombs:

TWO years????? Well, at least it was fine in the end.

In reply to Heike:

I've found it can be a bit like that with hands and fingers. A friend of mine developed a nodule on a tendon a couple of years ago that wouldn't pass through the pulley. His doctor pretty much told him "get over it you big wuss, it's just a finger". He didn't get it sorted until he found a climbing friendly doctor....

In your case though, as someone has said above, try playing on the new mother thing. Doctors might not care if you want your hand to climb, but they probably will care if your hand is affecting your ability to look after a new baby!

In reply to kathrync:

Yes,good thinking and it is actually the truth as I can still climb reasonably well, because you hardly ever close your hand in climbing unless it's a monster handle or a pinch. But I am worried I am going to drop the wee man - particularly in the middle of the night when I am heaving his carry cot around! And then there is such mundane tasks as opening a screwtop bottle or cutting cheese that doesn't quite work!