Bad experience. Endoscopic release for carpal tunnel. 4 months post surgery.

Brain and nerves
1

Hello all,
So I underwent surgery on 18th Dec. 2019 on my dominant right hand. This was 4 weeks after I had my left hand done. Left hand went very well, so I had no worries about getting my right hand done. I had read up on everything I could find relating to the surgery, leading up to the first hand being done, and I found very little to suggest that things could go badly or lead to a poor outcome following surgery.
My concern here is that I don’t want to put anyone off getting the surgery done, as its worked well for my left hand, but I feel people should be aware of the rare occasion when things don’t turn out the way you would hope they would.
On the day of my right hand being done, everything went pretty much the same way as it did the day of the left hand surgery. The only thing I can remember being different was the anaesthetic as it took over my lungs, slight panicky feeling then I was out. Don’t remember that from the first surgery. Following surgery my hand felt a bit more sore than the left hand did but I didn’t take much notice at the time. So I was expecting the numbness in my hand from the drugs to wear off after 24hrs as it had done before. This time though it took an extra 24hrs for the numbness to start to wear off. It was at this point I felt that something was different. Half of my middle finger and half of my ring finger and the webspace between them remained numb. Every morning after that I woke hoping that today the numbness would go but it didn’t. Then another symptom started to appear, I would get excrutiating pain in the tips of both of those fingers like they were being squeezed in a vice. I also had a lot of swelling in my entire hand. I put up with this for a few days until the worst pain to date woke me up at night on the 24th December. I contacted the surgeon that day through my doctor, the surgeon relayed through my doctor, that pain and swelling were normal at this stage and they would see me on 3rd Jan.
So that date came around, I saw the surgeon who said he didn’t realise the level of pain that I had been in. He said to give it six weeks and see where its at then. No offer of pain meds at anytime since the surgery. So six weeks went by, all the time the numbness and swelling remained, along with the intermittent vice feeling on the two finger tips. When I met the surgeon again he said he didn’t know what was going on and had never seen this in all the hands he has worked on before. He still felt though that this could wear off. He said he would arrange a nerve conduction study to see what that would show. That was scheduled for March 26th, but has been put on hold due to Covid-19.
So that brings me to today, as I type this I still have total numbness in half of the middle and ring finger. I cannot make a fist as it feels like I am holding a small object in my hand which is preventing my hand from closing. I am still experiencing the vice feeling in the finger tips but not as painful as it was. When I stretch my hand the two fingers feel very restricted and I get a burning sensation in them. If I run a finger across my palm I get an electric shock feeling running up into both fingers. If I tap on my wrist the electric shock feeling goes right through the centre of my hand and up into the two fingers.
So I wait for a revised date on the nerve study and don’t know if there is a resolution to this. I do my best to use the hand as much as possible as I don’t want the muscles wasting away. I’m lucky that my job entails working on a pc. If I had a very manual job, I would not have been able to return to work yet.
So this is the story that you don’t want to read, or need to read before going in for surgery. If it happened to me though, can it happen to you as well? or am I the very rare case that goes wrong? Either way, everyone should have access to all sides of the story, not just the good outcomes, as I enjoy with my left hand, but the, “I don’t believe that this has happened to me” outcome, as I continually endure with my right hand.

Sorry this is so long, but 4 months is a long time, with no end in sight!

2

hi there or will probably settle ..where did you have the surgery done?

3

Hi Johnno,

Its quite a few years now since my surgery, and I still return to this site to write and warn others that the outcomes are not always favourable. The electric shock you refer to is due to the tendon now being exposed, and is very sensitive. I had that for about 6-9 months, but doing something like lifting a heavy object or digging with a spade gave me the same reaction for over a year. The experience you are having though is different from mine, and seems more like trigger finger, I’m not a doctor but my mother suffered with similar issues until her trigger finger release.
I have pain across the back of my hands and my finger joints ache a lot still. I cant remember the date of my surgery off hand but its about 7-8 years now. A lot of the immediate issues dissipate, an inability to open a wide rimmed jar though that’s never going away.
I hope when we get out the other side of Covid they can sort it for you, take it easy and be kind to yourself. Time might not heal everything but it gives you the strength to cope.

4

Hi Sharon,
I had the surgery done in the Bon Secours hospital in Tralee, Ireland.

5

Thanks Mike,
It’s good to know that some of these issues can/might dissipate over time. It adds to the bigger picture to hear others experiences, even if they are not necessarily what you would like to hear pre-surgery.

6

Hi Johnno,

I agree sometimes the outcomes are worse than the problem. I still think that what they do is quite barbaric really. There are two major ligaments of the hand the palm which create the carpal tunnel and the dorsal on the back of the hand, they balance each other out. Holding the fingers in place they create support and balance between both sides. When you remove one you ask a lot more of the individual ligaments on the fingers and release the tension on the dorsal ligament on the back of the hand. mine has created a lot more work for the muscles between my fingers on the back of my hand. Strangely if I fall asleep on my hand only my 4th and 5th finger go to sleep. I wish surgeons explained more about the potential negative impact. More and more will suffer in the future as typing and using a mouse are both causes for it. I wonder if your surgeon might have damaged the flexor digitorum in the image which sits below this ligament .

7

Hi Mike,
You might be correct on the flexor digitorum . I just wonder then where the numbness is coming from. Dr. Bland had mentioned a possible problem with the palmar branches of the median nerve, on his forum. Its like there are symptoms of both issues present.