Needles!

Have I mentioned before that I have tendonitis in both of my wrists? Well, for those of you who don't know, I have tendonitis in both wrists. It's a specific type of tendonitis called De Quervains Syndrome, which apparently is quite common amongst pregnant women and new Mums. I got it when Caleb was around a month old and when he was six months old, I finally had my first physiotherapy appointment. I had tried to get one sooner but I had to go through the process of taking ibuprofen and then something stronger, then applying voltarol gel to my wrists, wearing wrist supports, etc. I had hoped that the doctors would refer me for physiotherapy sooner than they did but apparently, your wrists giving out and dropping your baby isn't good enough reason to be referred any sooner. (Luckily I dropped him onto the bed, so no damage was done, but still!).

I had about 4 physio appointments but none of the exercises they gave me to do worked. It might be because they told me not to do any lifting. I told them I have a baby and I can't really not lift him and I was told if I want it to get better, then I would have to avoid lifting him. Obviously that really wasn't an option but I was so glad when they finally decided that I could have steroid injections in my wrists. I had read up on it a bit and it's meant to work really well. Last week I had the injection! I'm not the biggest fan of needles but I was brave. They decided to only do one wrist for now just in case I couldn't use them at all, which is fair enough. I had to try and rest my wrist as much as possible afterwards, so Mum came down to help out with Caleb. She's so good, bless her! We ended up heading up to Norwich straight after my appointment, but more on that in the next post......

A week later and I can report that the injection seems to have worked! For the first time in around 8 months, my left wrist doesn't hurt and I can hold Caleb without being in any pain. I am having my right wrist done on Monday and Mum is coming to stay again. I am looking forward to having two fully functioning wrists. Yay for steroid injections!

....... I meant to post this before now, so here's a little update: I had my right wrist injected on Monday. It hurt quite a but more than my left wrist, perhaps because I'm right handed and I use it far more and it's taking a while to recover but hopefully all will be well soon! I had a lovely week with Mum here helping out and Laura came to spend the day with us on Thursday too, so it was a pretty good week for me, despite the pain! As has kind of become our tradition when Laura is here, we went to Bluewater on the Thursday. We tried on fossil watches (neither of us bought one, even though between the two of us, I'm pretty sure we keep them in business! They have a new range out and they are rather lovely) and Oakley sunglasses. I'm kind of lusting after one particular pair but I am being very sensible and not buying them. Here is a picture of Laura and Caleb hanging out in Urban Outfitters: