Fixing My Wrist

This isn't horse related, well not directly anyway.

I've had wrist problems for a long time now. It's mostly my right wrist, though my left wrist is all messed up too, just less so.

I first noticed it during finals week a long long time ago when it started hurting during a course where I had to write like a whole bunch of essays into one of those blue books.

These pictures have nothing to do with my wrist, I just still
have a bunch from this one ride

Then I really noticed it when I started Crossfit. It hurts to basically bend backward. There are a lot of things I have to do at Crossfit that requires bending it backward, like anything involving a front rack (so cleans, front squats, any shoulder to overhead lifts, etc) and push ups and hand stands and burpees and even some of our warm up movements like bear crawls or these weird monkey things my coach likes.

When I did Crossfit before, I just powered through the pain, modifying when I absolutely needed to. Eventually my wrist got so bad that I had shooting pain from the injury down my arm. It started hurting all the time. I talked to my coaches and started to modify more and more, but the pain was bad enough where I eventually quit.

When I got my first job out of grad school and had health insurance, I went to the doctor. They said to rest and gave me a bunch of pain meds.  Then I went to another doctor who said we could inject the tendon but that would make it weaker (wtf). The third doctor was the most blunt and simply told me to quit Crossfit. She said that it was my wrist conformation and that I'd never be comfortable bending it back. I asked about surgery, nope. Cool. So I just quit permanently and vowed to fix it later on, force them to give me an MRI or something. But that's expensive.

I haven't been able to use the soloshot recently because it has
been really windy and my tripod is a bit wobbly already

As you know, I started Crossfit in June this year. All that rest did do it some good, my injury is back to where it was before I started Crossfit in the first place. My coaches have been great at allowing me to modify absolutely everything I have to. I haven't attempted anything from front rack other than just some cleans that I immediately get off my shoulder.

Fast forward to one day, I'm doing back squats while everyone is doing front squats, which is normal for me. My coach's wife, who is a massage therapist (both of them are) asks why I'm not doing front squats. Because, I tell her, my wrist is injured. She grabs my forearm, stabs her thumbs into it, says "damn girl" and tells me she can fix it.

What.

Okay no but what.

Three doctors have told me there is nothing to do, that I'm just like this.

His tail remains insane

I scheduled a 15 minute injury-specific massage a week later. My forearm was extremely tight and so she worked on that while we chatted (er, I tried to chat, it was incredibly painful). I mentioned I rode horses. She said she knew why my forearm was so tight, it was because pretty much every day for the last 30 years, I hold my hand in a fist for at least an hour. Asked if I also worked an office job. Yep.

After that, I had more mobility and less pain than I've ever had in that wrist. I was surprised. The next day I did some front rack work and it was way less painful than before. Then over the next five days (with lots of bruising, I unfortunately now frequently look like I have a rough home life) it kind of slowly got back to normal.

I've now gone in three times, with another one scheduled for tonight. It's getting better! Honestly, I don't even need full range of motion, I just need to keep the wrist not pissed off during cleans. I'm already doing low to mid-volume push ups and burpees without pain!

I find it so funny that the doctor told me to stop doing Crossfit, but to continue riding... which is actually the root cause. Either way, I'm so glad to have found this place, these people, and to hopefully be working toward being pain free soon!