Fractured wrist

A baffling day...

Yesterday evening my wrist was a little sore, which I put down to a little mild RSI from using a laptop keyboard. This morning it was worse, especially in certain positions, and my hand also felt very slightly tingly - like pins and needles.

Since I had been diving at the weekend, this made me take notice as numbnesss, tingling and joint pain are all potential symptons of "the bends" or Decompression Sickness, which divers can suffer if they come to the surface too quickly. I checked the readouts from my dive computer and could see no reason why I would be affected, but it is a fairly random thing so I called the hyperbaric medicine centre in Aberdeen for advice. They thought it probably wasn't a bend, since the pain wasn't constant, but because of the tingling they got me to go to the minor injuries clinic for to get checked over.

I was seen very quickly at minor injuries by a very helpful nurse practitioner who poked and prodded my wrist and did a thorough neuro exam (bends can affect the nervous system) and after a phone discussion with the hyperbaric doc gave me the all clear. They decided I must just have knocked my wrist on something - not impossible on a rolling dive boat crammed with heavy equipment!

During the day the pain in my wrist got progressively worse, until I could hardly use my hand and it was distracting me from my work, so I went back to the minor injuries clinic on the way home. Once again I was seen very quickly and by the same nurse - who could see imediately that the poking and prodding she had subjected my wrist too in the morning wasn't going to work this evening - not without a sedative! She repeated the nero exam and so on, and eventually decided on an x-ray to rule out a fracture before getting back on to the hyperbaric centre, even though I had no recollection whatsoever of any accident of any note.

Sure enough, when the x-ray came back there is a tiny fracture and a tiny chip of bone floating around! I still have no idea how I did it (and before anyone says it, I wasn't drinking that much because I was both diving and driving) but at least my wrist pain is explained!

Now I have a splint which is working a miracle on stopping the pain, and an appointment at the fracture clinic at the ERI tomorrow afternoon to sort out what they are going to do - it's pretty minor so I'm hoping I just get told to keep using the splint...