UKC

I am having a problem with my wrist and hand to the point where I can’t perform day to day tasks without pain, and I tried some gentle climbing yesterday and was in agony. The pain radiates from my wrist and is triggered by movement in my index and middle fingers. Particularly twisting and grabbing (like unclipping things from a harness). Less so from pulling on holds with a straight hand.

I’m not looking for a diagnosis here (although if you have an idea, please say!) but more for advice on who to see for this kind of injury/problem.

I’ve been very active my whole life and was one of those lucky people that didn’t ever really get injured. Since hitting 40 I seem to get injured all the time but I’m not accustomed getting treatment. Do I see my doctor, a sports physio, osteopath, chyropractor???? There is a good physio at my GP clinic but wait times are really long.

I have a climbing holiday booked later in the year so really need to get it sorted somehow. Any advice really appreciated?

Sport physio, it sounds like the tendinopathy I have myself back at uni but more painful.

Have you tried resting it with ice packs and ibuprofen? If you went to a walk in centre they would be able to give you a splint as well to help you avoid aggravating it further.

That’s really helpful, thank you. There is a good sports physio close by so I will look into that.

Will also try ice today and grab a splint!

Biscuit from this forum is a great physio. Appointments can be in person or online - I’ve had many of the latter and never found them to be worse than in person. And it means i can do it on a work break easily 🙂

he is called process physiotherapy

Aha! He is the physio I mentioned near by!

Would second wrist tendonitis / tendinopathy. I had a case of it from overuse incident (kayaking) earlier in the year. Do you remember an initial onset or more gradual?

I initially self-treated with a splint for a couple of weeks and it improved but then recovery plateaued (still a bit sore with just normal day to day use) and then went to (private) physio and their exercises sorted it out within 6 weeks.

I would say an in-person physio appointment would be preferable as they did various finger/wrist/grip strength tests which is less easy to do online.

I had something similar last year after a long climbing weekend. Rested it completely for about two weeks, wore a simple wrist brace, and did some gentle stretching after the pain eased. It cleared up in about a month. Hope yours heals quickly!

Thanks very much everyone. Definitely sounds like the same thing. I bought a fairly substantial wrist brace this morning and after a day of reduced movement it genuinely feels better. But I also think I should book a session with a physio to get some rehab exercises alongside using the brace.

I feel far less down in the dumps about it knowing others have had a similar thing and got better fairly quickly!

You might want to consider buying Andrew McVities too https://www.processphysiotherapy.co.uk/the-self-rehabbed-climber

While it is unlikely to pick up on the specifics of your injury it will explain up to date thinking and processes around injury treatment and rehab. This is as opposed to older approaches where folk take a rest until it feels better but has had no conditioning so is actually weaker so re injury is more likely.

When you are sorted and in light of your increasing injuries look to develop a set of prehab exercises that future proof and protect your body eg antagonist exercises and proper warmups. There is wealth of advice out there though it can be hard to pin down and find the right stuff for your own body. This is handy as are his other videos  youtube.com/watch?v=6qk7FeBfilk&

Apologies if this is teaching you to suck eggs and good luck with your injury rehab.

Not at all. That’s really helpful, thank you.

I was very pleasantly surprised mine cleared up so well and 4 months later I actually have to think to remember which wrist was the issue!

If you haven’t had tendon issues before, the physio explained they’re a bit different to muscle issues as they have poorer blood supply. This means they heal slower and also require exercise to get better after a certain point as the exercises stimulate blood supply for healing - muscles will largely sort themselves out within a couple of weeks with no intervention bit that isn’t the case with tendons.

Any issues when sleeping?

As above see a physio to get your exact issue diagnosed.  I currently have something similar but affecting different fingers and I believe the exercises will be slightly different.  

I went to the physio through my GP so have also been put on a months course of high dose anti  inflammatory drugs to reduce any swelling and allow it time to heal.  For mine I was told to wear a splint only overnight and that was because I sleep with my wrist in odd positions and it was worse in the morning.  For mine I was told that keeping it moving the rest of the time was good for it, as long as I cut out the specific things that made it hurt.  

I'd tried self treatment for a couple of months first and it had plateaued.  Two weeks into splint drugs and exercises there has been some improvement.

Paul Houghoughi is really good, though it can be tricky to get an appointment with him as he's pretty busy. He does online and in-person https://www.theclimbingphysio.co.uk/