Hand Injury

[stemalone]

Hello everyone/anyone! Just wondering if anyone else is suffering from the same strange injury as myself. I am a hurler (check www.gaa.ie if you want to know what that is!) and I recently received an injury where my thumb got bent backwards. I have rested it since but it hasn't gone away unfortunately and anytime I now train, while holding the hurley, it still gets sore and is stiff the following morning. It does not hurt while in a game or anything as I think adrenaline may take over.

Can anyone advise as to what has happened or what should be done to help it? This isn't the first time I've had this injury and so I think Imay have a weak thumb or something.

Thanks for reading!

[CTT]

Hiya,

Wow - hurling is a bit diferent - I saw two chaps doing hitting practise the other week - and I thought hockey hurt if you are hit by the ball! I am afraid to say that I don't think your injury and complaint of post-injury pain is strange for your sport!

I would hazard a guess that you injury is still in the healing phase (3-6 months) yes, I did say 3-6 months! We expect our musculoskeletal system to be pain free within days rather than weeks or months, but come on be realistic.

The thumb, hand and wrist joint is a rather complicated bit of enginerring. The thumb has a large range of movement and when over-stretched - muscles, tendons and ligaments take the strain. It is hard to truly rest the thumb as we use it so much for everyday activities - work at a computer? drive to work? write with the affected hand?

If your thumb was forcibly bent backwards (e.g. fall on to it, ball impact or your bat was forced backwards etc) then you are looking 6-12 weeks for everything to really start settling and 6 months to get a really good idea of end result.

The post exercise pain is likely to be from the strain of gripping and supporting the weight of your bat, from the impact of the ball and from the swing and folow-through. So make sure that you warm up well and consciously grip it only as hard as you need to and that the grip is comfortably large so that the grip does the job rather than your thumb and forearm muscles.

It was good that you rested it post-injury but there is more that you can do to help the healing process. Warm-up (not by batting!) and then firmly massage and stretch the thumb, hand, wrist and arm. Be ware of your grip! Immediately post exercise, again stretch and massage the area, apply an ice-pack for 10-20 minutes (or get your grip round a wet pint glass full of iced water (!) Cut back on PC work and/or use your mouse in other hand! Massage your hand and forearm frequently during the day and ice it if sore.

Good luck! I would love to have a go at Hurling - looks fab!