Blogoween: Skeleton Hands Gone Wrong

Happy Halloween everybody! I managed to make blog posts for 3/5 of my Halloween content posts on Instagram, so I’m happy with how that turned out (regardless of how short and messy they may be). Perhaps next year I’ll be more prepared and we can have an extended Blogoween. But I’m getting way ahead of myself.

Let’s talk about the skeleton a little bit – more specifically, a condition that is near and dear to my heart that involves the skeletal system: tendonitis.

 

Note: I’ve seen it written both tendonitis and tendinitis, I’m not entirely sure which is the correct what so I’m sticking with tendonitis because it follows how you spell tendon.

 

You’re probably thinking, “tendons are obviously not part of the skeleton,” and you’d be correct. However, tendons are what connect muscle to bones, so without them we wouldn’t be able to move our bones around (wording it that way makes it sound weird, but it’s essentially what we do all the time).

Tendonitis occurs when the tendons are inflamed, typically occurring around the joints. You might’ve heard of swimmer’s shoulder or tennis/golfer elbow – these are tendonitis, caused by the repeated movements of these sports. Personally, I have tendonitis in my wrist and hands, I was sort of unofficially diagnosed way back in high school. For the most part it doesn’t bother me, but every once in a while my finger joints swell and it’s difficult to move or squeeze my hands tightly. I also have lost the ability to straighten my right pinky finger (you can tell if you look closely at my picture at the top of the post) – the left one is alright still, but I’m just waiting for the day it fails me too.

It can become a chronic condition, and it’s often not caused by a sudden traumatic injury, but rather continued use or overuse over time. It can occur because of improper form or constantly doing activities in an awkward/unnatural position. My doctor suggested mine occurred because of my years playing saxophone and piano – and now my accumulated years of pipetting have likely not helped my condition.

For the most part, tendonitis has no definitive treatment. For a while, I took Aleve every day, but eventually I stopped because it didn’t help me at all and taking Aleve every day at my young age can’t be good for me. Some of my musician friends did physical therapy for a while, which helped them substantially (I know, I should probably seek some therapy). It’s not a severe condition, however, the risk of rupturing tendons is increased slightly with tendonitis, and in the worst case you can develop a condition called tendinosis – degeneration of tendons and growth of abnormal blood vessels.

 

Yeah, that last part doesn’t scare me at all…

 

Anyway, I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with this post. I just wanted to share a bit about my hands and how they don’t always work correctly, because I’ve found a lot of people like me in the sciences (that damn pipetting). If you’re like me and have issues with your hands, I want to say two things to you:

1. You are not alone in your daily pains
2. Let’s get our butts to physical therapy

 

Further reading:

• Mayo Clinic tendonitis summary
• Tendonitis and Tendinopathy (need special access)
• Shockwave therapy in tendinopathies

 

At-home “therapy” (because not everyone can afford physical therapy):

• AskDoctorJo – licensed physical therapist with lots of good stretches
• Yoga for wrists
• Yoga for sore wrists – my favorite Yoga channel