Advice on an old injury and exercising?

[peggyfromwastate]

I broke my wrist badly when I was preggers with ds7. So it's been 8 years. They reduced it in the clinic, said if I weren't pregnant they would have opted for surgery to repair it (it was a compound fracture, crushed bones, just nasty). Anyway, it hurts when it rains, it pops all the time when i flex my wrist, and it ached after the push ups and planks at the monday total body conditioning class.

I'm wondering if I need to get it checked out before doing more exercise on it? Or will the push ups and planks just help it get stronger?

[diggitydot]

Get it checked out before working out with it. You may need some physical therapy to strengthen it appropriately before being able to exercise that way.

[Phoebe]

I second getting it checked out. My daughter is going through the same thing right now. She broke her arm 2.5 years ago and she didn't rehabiltate completely from the injury. Her right arm is much smaller than her left even though she is right-handed. She is a gymnast and has repetitive impact. An x-ray showed inflammation and sclerosis (whatever that is). She is being sent to an OT for a therapy plan to rebuild the muscles. She has to wear a support brace for awhile. That said, my wrists hurt when I do yoga and push-ups or plank positions and have to hold it. I have heard that a lot from women who do pilates and yoga that their wrists hurt and it takes a while to build up strength. It has been suggested to me to use hand weights as to hold myself up during exercises instead of placing all the weight on my wrists. It helps.

[peggyfromwastate]

I'm so sorry your dd has to go through that!!!

Gymnastics is pretty brutal!

[Vanquisher]

Definitely get it checked out, but it's doubtful that exercising is really going to make it worse, even if it is painful. Physical therapy may help your symptoms a little bit probably won't solve any problems. This will likely be an ongoing issue. DH suspects that you have post-traumatic arthritis. He'd like to see x-rays. You could try steroid injections and NSAIDS, but beyond that you are talking yucky surgeries depending on the specific joint(s) involved. It may be that you have to modify your exercises to decrease stress on the wrist.

Phoebe (and Peggy if you do yoga) - you can modify a lot of the yoga poses by going down onto your elbows to take the pressure off your wrists. I have intermittent wrist issues and often do a modified pose, especially if it is one where you have your weight on 1 wrist (like side plank). It's too painful.

[moonlight]

I would have it checked out to see what's going on in there since 7 years ago. I was extremely overweight and doing yoga throughout my weight loss journey and never had wrist pain. I'm kinda a stickler for 'doing it right' tho. I have a pain in my left foot that I'm about to have checked out as well. Five months of pain (for me) doesn't sound right and I dont know that its going away. Good luck, I hope you get some answers.

[Michele]

It makes sense that plank and pushups would hurt. I agree with trying to modify them to take the pressure off your wrist. Maybe elbows for plank and doing pushups on fists with straight wrists? A brace might help too.

Seeing a doctor is always a good option. But I would think arthritis is the most likely diagnosis and there isn't much that can be done for it (like Heidi said).

[Deebs]

The hurting while it rains sends off bells and whistles in my head that it is probably arthritis. I have some in my hands, and it sucks. DH had a severe injury pre med school and the arthritis is ultimately why he decided trauma surgery wasn't even an option for him as a specialty. Sometimes it's just incredibly painful and, other than meds, there's not much to do.

[Michele]

Bump. I know this is 2 years old, but my wrists seem to bother me more and I wondered if you figured out what was going on with yours and if they "got stronger".

[peggyfromwastate]

I had to look up who wrote this thread originally lol. I did.

Well my wrist still hurts with the rain, but in this climate it never rains so it's better. About 2 years ago I started working push ups into my workout routine. They hurt--- my right side more-- but I have gotten stronger. I have been told that I won't do damage to the wrists by bearing some weight, but it is annoying. The taekwondo classes require me to do push ups and planks, and it pretty much hurts while doing the motion but I have no lingering effects. And since I'm not training for the Olympics, if it's too much pain I just do not do it.