How It All Began

 Hello everyone! My name is Kat. I am a 38 year-old Mom of two and I’d like to introduce myself with the story of how this all began.

Let’s take a walk back down memory lane, 20 years ago. I was a freshman in college. I started a semester late, and wanted to catch up to graduate “on time“. I was taking extra classes majoring in accounting, and I had stacked my schedule to allow three days off from classes. When I wasn’t in class full-time, I was a waitress at a local nearby restaurant.

At Ruby Tuesday’s, when the plates were too hot to handle, they double plated the food to carry out to our tables. Between working two double shifts and a regular shift at the restaurant per week, and taking six full-time college courses with handwritten notes (computers were not the main form of note taking back in 2004, at least for this older millennial 😋) I begin to suffer from symptoms.

PAIN. Excruciating, chronic pain. It seemingly came out of nowhere. I didn’t understand. I was young ambitious and driven. I sought out medical advice from my PCP.

The diagnoses started out as tendonitis. Inflammation of the tendons that run through your forearm wrist and hand due to overuse and causing pain in the tendons.I can’t even recall the protocol to treat, but I went with what the doctor recommended at the time.

After continual months of consistent pain without relief, I continue to return to the doctor’s office on a regular basis. I was furthermore diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome. Which is a compression of all of the nerves and tendons that run through the carpal tunnel outlet in your wrist between your hand and your forearm. The nerve pain was truly what was the most excruciating for me. At that point I was referred to an orthopedic specialist doctor.

I continued seeing this doctor regularly. He was known as the wrist specialist in our area and was very highly regarded and worked not only in his specialist location, but also at a local hospital where he dealt with emergencies and chronic issues with patients. He was also a surgeon. 

My carpal tunnel got so bad that I started having carpal tunnel in my non-dominant left hand as well. I was no longer able to feel textures with my fingertips on my right hand. I had started to use my left hand as my dominant hand due to the amount of pain I was in. Daily life became very challenging and chronic pain made me become very irritable.

I continued to follow the doctors recommendations from wrist braces, physical therapy, Cortisone shots, until all options were exhausted, except surgery. Each of the doctors recommendations helped, only for a short period of time. It wasn’t enough and the chronic pain never left. Symptoms ebbed and flowed. No two days were alike.

At this point, I was 22 years old, and hadn’t even begun my career yet. It was time for surgery. I went in for surgery on Christmas Eve so that I would have time to recover during my winter break. It was a laparoscopic procedure. I just needed a beer block on my arm and I would be awake for the surgery. The anesthesiologist informed me That I was the youngest patient that day by 50 years. This was one of the biggest first clues that something was strange about this.

I will say that my orthopedic surgeon did give me 10 years of symptom-free pain relief. For that I was incredibly grateful however this only brought me to 32 years old. Had this brought me from 72 to 82 years old, I might have settled or accepted the fact that this was something I was going to have to live with. At 32. I’d like to think that I have plenty of life left ahead of me. Stay tuned from more of my story and thanks for being here…..

One of the most beneficial tools that I continue to use to this day with 20 years of carpal tunnel syndrome is this brace which I wear religiously to bed every night! 

https://amzn.to/4gzRCCi

(As an Amazon Associate, I do receive a small commission on any sales of this product).

Thank you so much for being here. I can't wait to hear comments and feedback from YOU. What do you need help with and what tips and tricks are you looking to implement into your life so that you can function without intense chronic pain? Drop a comment below. 



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