Wrist Injury Due To Wakeboarding???

Ok, here is my story. I have had a nagging wrist injury since early spring. I didn't want to lose out on the wakeboard season so I just kind of ignored it. Now that the wakeboarding is winding down I decided (with much nagging from my girlfriend) to get it checked out. The preliminary diagnosis is a TFCC (Triangular Fibro Cartilage Complex) injury. X-rays of my wrist show that my Ulnae (outside bone in my forearm) is about 3mm longer than normal. This causes the small pocket containing the cartilage in my wrist to be cramped. The result (so far as the doctor can tell) is ruptured or torn cartilege. I go in on the 8th to have an MR Arthogram to see if this is true. In an MR Arthogram they shoot dye into the cartilage and take an MRI to see if it is leaking out. If it is torn or ruptured it can be repaired with surgery, but the doc says it is likely I will tear/rupture it again. It looks like the only way to make sure there is enough room for the cartilage is to shorten the Ulnae! I don't even want to think about that!

Anyway, the only way I can think of how I hurt my wrist is from falling with the handle in my left hand. I ride regular so when I drop my right hand the handle rotates and flexes my wrist to the outside. I am thinking that a hard fall might have rotated my wrist so far to the outside that the bones in my forarm and wrist slammed together and damaged the cartilage.

Has anyone else gone through this?

Here is a pic of my left wrist. You can clearly see that the outside bone is longer. It is supposed to be flush with the other bone in my forearm. I will post pics from the MR Arthogram when I get the tests done.

Wish me the best...

are you left handed? how are the palms looking? vision okay?

Luckily I ma right handed. No coment on the palms.

girlfriend not doing her girlfriend duties?

So would they cut the 3mm out of the middle of the bone? Did they say if the extra length was a congenital condition or a result of injury? Is the ulna actually too long or is it possibly just shifted down from the elbow?

...just curious.

From what I understand IF (I hope a BIG if) they have to shorten the bone they would take it out of the middle and pin/screw it back together to heal. I'll ask the doc about the elbow, he didn't even look at it and the thought never crossed my mind. I guess it is possible that the bone could have shifted. My right arm is the same way though. The reason I have not injured my right wrist is because I am right handed and the muscles and ligaments are deffinatly stronger.

Jae,

I have that same tear regconized by MRA. I did it lifting (the same motion as a curl). This sounds crazy to me but the first orthopod I saw wasn't a hand/wrist expert so he sent me to PT 3 times a week. Well it felt a little better from the simulation machine and the massaging. When we didnt see too much improvement, I went to a wrist specialist. He put it in a cast to my elbow for 6 weeks and it felt much better. That was a year ago and I rode all summer with little to no pain. When it did bother me I wore a tight wrist wrap. He said surgery was about %65 effective so I said screw it and took my chances. It does bother me some but its not too bad.
Anyway, good luck with your decision. I have never heard of anyone else with a TFCC tear.

It's official. I have a TFCC tear. I have torn a chunk of the cartilege near the middle of my wrist and have torn it loose from the bone on the outside of my wrist. I go into orthoscopic surgery Monday morning to repair the hole and reattach it to the bone. It looks like I will be in a brace from just above the elbow to my fingertips for 6-8 weeks. The doc says it will be at least 2 months of PT to get back to normal.

If they find bone damage from the bones rubbing together they will take a slice of bone out of the middle of my Ulnae and pin it back together and then repair the cartilege. If that is the case I can tack on another 3-4 weeks in a brace! I will try to post pics of the MR Arthogram when I get them.

Everyone take care, see you on the other side. And no, I don't mean the dark side!

good luck jae g master. here's to a quick and full recovery. just do what your doc/pt says!

Thanks Joe, I will deffinatly follow all instructions to a T. If I can't snowboard this season I'll have nothing better to do than work on my rehab.

Take good care of the boys when they are at the delta.

I am sorry to hear you have to have surgery. Good Luck, keep us updated.

You timed it right though, the water should be warming up just when you are finishing rehab.

eh dude

I don't have the same prob, but its a wrist thign with a scope.

I tore a ligament (scafoid) in my wrist this summer skiing on a glacier in whistler (winter sports during the summer, forget em) lol

anyways yea I went for surgery, they cleaned it all up, a bunch of physio to loosen the thing up and Im doign pretty good now, I've been boarding a bit with no probs.

I would just say when peopel say your arm looks smaller than the other to tell em to piss off

Well,it is 1 week after surgery and all
i can say is holy crap! The tear in my cartilege was about twice as bad as they thought. And the cartilege was completly torn from the bones. After a bunch of cutting and 8 stitches to hold everythind in place everything went as well as can be expected. I go in tomorrow to see how everything held together the first week. I will also hopefully get into my long term brace (10 weeks) instead of the half cast I'm in now. Here are a couple of pics. The first one shows the tear in the cartilege.

Here is my new Robo Arm.




Today is surgery #2 to fix some pinched nerves. The doc said they had to move the Ulnar Nerve Branch out of the way to reattach the cartilege to the bone and he thinks the nerves might be hung up on the sutures. Mt wrist and hand have felt like the worst sun burn imaginable since the surgery. Hopefully the nerves are not damaged and the pain will go away soon. This is deffinatly way more of a drag than I thought.

"My words of advice..HOLD ONTO THE HANDLE WITH BOTH HANDS WHEN YOU FALL."

Or at least let go sooner.

Later.

Take care man. This sucks!

Thanx for keeping us updated.

I thought you mentioned that you had a nagging injury was that also from WB or something else?
In any which case hope you feel better soon and hopefully you won't mis a beat next summer.

peace

Good thing you've got a girlfriend, because your right handed aren't you?

I'll be in town on Saturday afternoon, let's get a beer!!

Here are a couple of more pics after the second surgery.

That actually doesn't look too bad.
How do you feel?

J: Sorry to hear about that man!!! I have almost the same brace on my leg from knee surgery 2 weeks ago. My son calls it my Robo-Leg. True to form, thats what it sure looks like!! Just thought it was humorous you called it the same thing.

Take care, bud!

It doesn't feel too bad. Most of my hand is numb and there is still some burning frm the pinched nerves but the Vicadin takes care of that. The big hassle is trying to type these posts with one hand.

Thanks for the kind words, I'll be back full strength by the Spring hopefully.

Suck it up you prissy wuss.

I don't care if they had to amputate the damn thing. You only need one good arm to hold a flag for me!

Laci is quickly becoming comfortable in your vacated spot on the boat.

Let me know if you and Scotty decide to hook up. I might sneek out for a bit.

Jay - hey hope your feeling better, Oh by the way SWEET SHIRT you have on!!!!!!!!!

Get Better soon eh.

Mike

Sorry to see you can't board, but like Cliff pointed out, I am becoming quite comfortable in your place . I got in the water yesterday when the water temperature was 46 degrees. I think that is pretty hardcore. Now being my first time in that temperature, it was a short run, but at least I was riding.

Hurry up and get better so you can come out and give me some tips for making that w2w.

Well, I'm 8 weeks into the healing process and so far everything looks good. I am only wearing a splint now and the Doc is having me do a lot of streches to get the new ligaments limbered up. I should be splint free on the 21st and able to start strengthening everything then. I have lost almost 12 pounds since my first surgery so it will take a while to get back to where I was.

Here are a couple of pictures that show just how small my arm got from not using it. Too bad I didn't take a before picture.