Hyper extended wrist Injury

[dpmooney04]

Recently, while Olympic lifting (overhead), i suffered an injury when i failed on a movement and my elbow struck my knee, ultimately causing a hyperextended wrist (backwards).  I immediately dropped the weight and upper body lifting for 2 weeks.  The 2 weeks were filled with stiffness, immediate mobility loss, nagging pain, no swelling, loss of grip strength, and pain when spreading fingers.  Most terrible symptom was pain when pushing on bottom of hand like if i were to do a push-up.

After 2 weeks and no improvement, i visited the doctor under the impression that i had broken one of the carpal bones inside of the wrist.  I had been through similar pain, pain that did not feel like ligament pain and felt inside of the bones, 4 years prior when I broke my scaphoid bone playing hockey in the same wrist. I had a screw put into my scaphoid bone to hold it together.  Up until the injury, had retained about 95% mobility and a very successful surgery.  I thought that the pressure of the extension combined with the increased strength of my scaphoid bone, might have messed with one of the other 7 bones inside the wrist.  Once at the clinic (military clinic), the took a x-ray and determined they could not see a break.


After 2 more weeks (1 month total), i have seen no improvements in my wrist, no increase ability to put pressure on my wrist, about 60% normal mobility.  I have felt very unsatisfied with my assistance with my Military Healthcare provider and don't really know where else to go.  I am forced to use this service and after they have provided me little guidance on the way forward for my wrist, i am not sure how to continue forward with recovering my wrist.

At this point, my questions are:

1.)Advice on rehab procedures.  I received absolutely no way forward for this injury from my HCP

2.)Should i be doing mobility work?  Is it possible to do long lasting damage because of the slow development of wrist fractures in the wrist?  Is it possible that the sudden loss of mobility may be causing the pain and the solution is proper mobility work?

3.)Should i continue to assume that there is no fracture and slowly add weight resistance to my injured wrist?

4.) At what point do i return to the clinic for an additional x-ray to reconfirm?  The first scaphoid fracture went diagnosed through my first x-ray as well.  I then played the remained of the hockey season with the fracture before having another x-ray conducted showing the wrist.  I would prefer to avoid surgery this time.

Thank you in advance!

-Dave

[Paxiled]

Maybe we posted at the same time!  We've got to stop meeting like this!  Have you noticed the wonderful way the posts are coming out?  Definitely does not like apostrophes.

[gymdandee]

Pax I could swear I posted it before you did! Otherwise I would have posted pax. is correct! When I posted it was with the so called new forum.

[Paxiled]

Hey, Gym, that's what I just said!

[gymdandee]

I suggest seeing a hand specialist.

[Paxiled]

You say you saw a doctor, but did you see an orthopedic specialist?  While x-rays can reveal broken bones, they can't show you soft tissue injuries, which requires an MRI.  I don't know anything about the healthcare system you're in, but I assume medicine is medicine, and a specialist is called for when a general doc can't figure it out.  I also wonder why you don't mention being told about ice and elevation or other ways injuries are treated quickly to avoid chronic inflammation.  My guess is, if nothing is broken, you probably need to reduce inflammation and perhaps go to a physical therapist for some exercises to rehab your hand.  My wife has a hand problem, was sent to an orthopedist, got an MRI, was sent to a hand therapist.  Can't see why this hasn't been done with you.