I ran across an interesting (and slightly horrifying) article in the Calgary Herald a couple of days ago (text and link are below). People usually think of tendon pain as something that happens in the larger joints, the elbows, knees, ankles and so on. But it can happen anywhere that there is a repetitive stress and pattern overload. Here’s an extreme case:
Banker undergoes ‘BlackBerry thumb’ surgery because she used her iPhone too much
By Katya Wachtel, Business Insider August 29, 2010
A mortgage banker just had to have surgery on her thumb because she was using her iPhone too much, according to WTSP.
The hospital says her condition is best known as “Blackberry thumb.” However, since she was using an iPhone, “iPhone thumb” is obviously more appropriate in her case.
Symptoms of Blackberry thumb include pain, inflammation, numbness and tingling.
The Philly woman might have realized she felt some of the symptoms had she not spent up to 12 hours a day in communication with clients on her iPhone.
The tendons in her thumb became so severely inflamed, they required removal.
Her need for surgery would (almost?) be funny, but apparently surgery on the hand is very serious and it’s going to be a long time before she can use her phone again. Recovery time for tendon surgery can be up to two months or longer.
“Most hand tendon injuries take longer to recover than most other operations elsewhere in the body,” according to the American Society for Surgery of the Hand
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/technol…#ixzz0y2Lt9Vag
I have complete confidence that the techniques I explain in my book will cure most people, but in this case I wouldn’t be completely positive. I’m fairly sure that with the amount of stress this lady placed on her tendons she’s gone beyond tendonitis (simple inflammation) and well into tendonosis (actual damage to the tendon itself). But if you’ve got tingling and numbness you’re probably experiencing some nerve damage along with the tendon problem, and that’s frankly beyond my expertise. Still, I think that if it were me I’d invest thirty bucks–especially since there’s a money-back guarantee–and see what happened before I opted for surgery.
For those who are experiencing some pain (but not as severe as the lady in the article), there is a quick and accurate tendon test on this page that will tell you what sort of pain you have, and what you can do about it.