Surgery on left hand
7 January 2014 - 10:38am
Hello Dr Bland,
I had surgery for Carpal Tunnel on my left hand on the 30 November 2013. Since then, I am experiencing cramps in the hand as well as down the fingers, not all the time, but quite frequently. I was just wondering if this was normal? I had my right hand done in June, last year and I had no side affects from the surgery at all, healing up very well.
The scare tissue on my left hand and the thumb area, is also still very tender and I can't lean on the hand or at times undo certain screw tops, like the ones you have to squeeze and turn to release.
Am I just being rather impatient with the healing process, I realise that not all surgery's are the same and some probably take more time?
Kind regards
Julie Harris
You may just be unlucky with that second operation, like another patient who I reviewed yesterday. I always have trouble interpreting the word 'cramp' when used by patients as people seem to mean a variety of different symptoms by this so it's hard to analyse that particular symptom via a conversation on here. Local tenderness either at, or either side of, the incision is common as is pain on leaning on the heel of the hand. These pains usually, but not always, improve over a period of months to years. As long as the original CTS symptoms have definitely improved they do not usually indicate that anything has 'gone wrong' as such. We will be writing to you to check the outcome round about the end of Feb and if it is still a significant problem then I will probably take another look at you to see if I can see any obvious reason for the problem but usually in these circumstances I do not find anything obviously treatable. JB