Back in October, just days after my one-year climbingiversary (that's a technical term, there), I tweaked my wrist picking up a box at work. It's pathetic. It felt like a pop and then a shot of pain down my forearm, and I couldn't make a fist for the rest of the day. So I rested it, iced it, took some time off climbing, and when I finally went back about a month later, I still had pain and weakness in my left wrist. For the last 9 months, I've been climbing at 50% strength, and avoiding anything remotely slopey or left-hand-intensive.
A few weeks ago, after months of limiting myself to v2s (I even stopped knitting for a while!), I figured it was time to just play through the pain, and spent an entire lengthy (comparably) climbing session working a challenging v5. My soon-to-be-roommate Amber gently advised against this, but naturally I didn't listen. The next morning, I could hardly move my left hand. Any amount of impact (pushing, twisting, lifting) was excruciating. I scheduled an emergency appointment for that afternoon with my primary care physician - yes, I have one of those despite not having any health insurance. The potential cost forgotten in my pain, I had an x-ray. The doctor called it tendinitis, a diagnosis which frustrated me to no end. The stretches she assigned me were impossible due to the extreme pain; I couldn't bend my wrist more than about 30 degrees in either direction. I had a nagging feeling this wasn't tendinitis.
Days later, I get a call from the doctor. The x-ray results showed a calcification in my wrist, just above the wrist bone directly below my little finger. I had even seen it on the x-ray. It looked like a little triangle of white mass right in my wrist joint. So that was somewhat satisfying, because at least now I knew what I was really dealing with, and how to treat it. Except they recommended acupuncture. I had a brief "WTF" moment before deciding I'd give it a shot. Acupuncture isn't that expensive. And this is Portland, after all.
I left after the first appointment feeling disheartened. My pain was somewhat alleviated, and I had napped for almost two hours in the middle of the day, but I was going to have to receive treatment at least twice a week for a month. I just couldn't afford that. I remembered a Facebook post by my friend Jeff talking about a low-level laser treatment he was going to receive for a tendon injury. Months ago, he'd suggested it might work for me. I finally followed up on that, and went to see Dr. Rob.
Dr. Rob, not to mince words, is a fucking miracle worker. My first session was less than half an hour. He scraped at my wrist with some metallic scrapey-tool, and did four minutes of LLLT on my wrist. Without even seeing the x-rays, he knew what to treat. And holy shit, if I didn't feel amazing the next day. I had my range of motion back, and significantly decreased pain. Three more sessions and two weeks later, I can put weight on my wrist enough to do a pushup, finally. I was able to help carry my couch when I sold it two days ago. The pain, stiffness and weakness I've been enduring for most of a year are all 90% gone.
And, hey, climber friends! Dr. Rob used to climb too. If you have any sort of climbing injury and you are being an idiot like I was, and not treating it at all, I highly recommend him. It's totally affordable. And it was 100% worth it if I get to climb again, which is looming on the horizon.
You should know that if I'm blogging about something, it's because I really like it. So do it! Get some laser on your injuries!
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