Good evening, I decided to post the Sunday Weigh In this evening in case things get hectic tomorrow. I also wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Season's Greetings.
This past week has been kind of odd for me - not one of my best, for sure. I saw the foot doctor on Wednesday. It was my first visit with him and he's very nice, knowledgeable and explains things extremely well. He'll answer whatever questions you have and spend as much time as he needs to. That's wonderful, but all that does take time, so my 5:15 pm appointment turned into a 7:00 pm appointment. Of course, he was just as diligent at answering my questions and explaining things as he was everyone else. I've never gotten home from a doctor's appointment at 8:30 in the evening!! Quite an experience.
Anyway, I've mentioned that I have a ganglion cyst and some split tears on a couple of tendons in my foot. The doctor isn't going to do anything with the ganglion cyst right now because he doesn't think that's causing my pain. He thinks it's the tendon tears that are causing the pain. Unfortunately, the walking that I've thought was so good for me, was actually causing the damage. Yeah, because the muscles in my calves got too tight and put pressure on the tendons in my feet. That's caused from not doing stretching exercises before/after I walk. Who'da thunk??
The treatment for that (split tendons) is immobilizing the foot, so I'm in a boot for the next 6 weeks. The boot is big and clumsy... totally uncomfortable and needless to say it's making my neuropathy flare like crazy!! But I'll wear it because if my tendons heal, as expected, I won't have to have surgery on that foot again.
I also saw the hand surgeon yesterday - rather the PA, who was very nice and knowledgeable. She confirmed the diagnosis of carpal tunnel, in both hands, put forth by my primary care physician. She also added a diagnosis of Cubital Tunnel Syndrome - which involves the ulnar nerve that threads through the elbow and goes down the forearm. The median nerve, involved in Carpal Tunnel, branches off from the ulnar never. The median nerve controls movement in the thumb, index, middle and 1/2 of the ring fingers. The ulnar nerve controls movement in the pinky, other half of the ring finger and the front of the hand. Both of these conditions are caused by these nerves being pinched/compressed. The ulnar nerve gets compressed at the elbow, usually from being bent too much. The median nerve gets pinched from repetitive motions.
In addition to the Carpal Tunnel and Cubital Tunnel Syndromes, I have muscle wasting in my thumbs which makes the very weak and it's hard to grasp things. In testing my fingers, it was determined that I also have a "trigger finger"... it's the ring finger on my left hand. A trigger finger is one in which the nerves don't move smoothly in the sheath, so the finger bends, but then doesn't straighten smoothly - it's sort of "pops" as it straightens. That finger has behaved that way for years - I thought it was something like "double jointed", etc. Nope, it's not a good thing.
So - I'm going to have to go through some nerve conduction tests to determine the extent (mild, moderate, severe) of the Carpal and Cubital Tunnel Syndromes. If the results are anything other than mild, surgery will be required on both hands to release the median nerves, as well as my elbows to release the ulnar nerves. This is not something I really want to deal with, but if I don't, loss of nerve function, along with muscle wasting can make my hands unusable. At this point, the nerve function can be reversed, but I'm not sure if the muscle wasting can be.
I did get a steroid shot at the base of my trigger finger... oh my - how painful can it get?? The trigger finger is still "sticking", but the shot seems to have helped the pain in the thumb on that hand. IDK how long the relief is going to last and if the shot doesn't help the trigger finger, they'll fix it when they do the CTS surgery on that hand.
Being the Christmas holiday, they weren't able to set up appointments for the testing that needs to be done. They're supposed to do that on Tuesday. We go from there. Although the PA seemed to think surgery on both hands is inevitable, it looks like it could be March or April before anything will happen.
All that said - I've been a bit disturbed all week and not eating as much. I've lost 1.6 pounds since last week. I'm happy with that, but assuming it's coming from not being as hungry and dragging this big ole boot around.
Anyway, I know some people have a lot of holiday parties to deal with, that can often lead to weight gain. I hope you have strategies to deal with those and look forward to hearing about your experiences.
~~Wishing everyone a wonderful, successful week ~~
Happy Holidays to everyone.