Arm and Wrist Fusion

Has anyone here had to get their arm and wrist fused together? Or know of anyone? My husband has had 5 surgeries on his arm with absolutely no recovery, if anything its worse. Now the only thing left is getting the arm and wrist fused. I’ve looked around on line and can’t really find any feed back from an active gym person. Most stuff out there is for people with arthritis.

thx

What exactly is the problem?

Os it maybe sports related?
I had much pain in my wrists from combat sports and strength workouts. When I stopped hitting people in the head 4 times a week, it got better.

I don’t know how severe the problem is but using a Powerball helps my carpal tunnel. You can get them off Amazon and a lot of other etailers. Just Google it.

If you’re asking what effect this will have on his weight training, it means that he won’t be able to do pushing or pulling movements which require movement at the wrist. Barbell bench press is out, although he might be able to use a dumbbell. If he can’t, he can do isolation exercises for the chest, shoulders, triceps, et cetera. Rowing exercises are probably out. Don’t know about pull-ups. It’s certainly a disability in the weight room, but is not the end of the world. He can work around it.

The problem occured along time ago, and since he has had to get 5 surgeries, where they just made it worse. It isn’t a sports injury, actually before the arm surgeries 5 years ago he was doing combat sports and lifting. After the surgeries he has continued to lift through the pain, you can’t even tell his arm has been butchered. However, the pain is only getting worse and he is thinking of getting it fused. Beliligerent I agree with you on all the limitations, I am hoping maybe some one out there knows of somebody who has had it done and what they have accomplished afterward. I know if he does get it done he will work around it.

Thx.

[quote]roxi wrote:
Has anyone here had to get their arm and wrist fused together? Or know of anyone? My husband has had 5 surgeries on his arm with absolutely no recovery, if anything its worse. Now the only thing left is getting the arm and wrist fused. I’ve looked around on line and can’t really find any feed back from an active gym person. Most stuff out there is for people with arthritis.

thx [/quote]

Google Jason Pegg. Not the exact same circumstance, but his story may be of interest. A video of his most recent antics:

What was the original problem that they couldn’t solve with 5 surgeries and now may require a fusion?

thx for the name, i will give him a google.
As for the original problem, he was hit by a drunk driver. He shattered both wrists and a lot of other damage. Through time his right wrist started to bother him more and more, so he finally gave into the VA doing surgery on his right wrist. They messed this surgery up and took 4 more to try and fix it as they continued up from his wrist, to his elbow and then to his shoulder. I know there isn’t any miracle out there to fix his problem. He fights the pain everyday its amazing, no pain killers or anything. He continues to lift and just by looking at him you would never guess anything is wrong. I know its a man thing, I just hate seeing him in pain.(And I know he would be a bit angry about me even posting this)

thx

[quote]roxi wrote:
thx for the name, i will give him a google.
As for the original problem, he was hit by a drunk driver. He shattered both wrists and a lot of other damage. Through time his right wrist started to bother him more and more, so he finally gave into the VA doing surgery on his right wrist. They messed this surgery up and took 4 more to try and fix it as they continued up from his wrist, to his elbow and then to his shoulder. I know there isn’t any miracle out there to fix his problem. He fights the pain everyday its amazing, no pain killers or anything. He continues to lift and just by looking at him you would never guess anything is wrong. I know its a man thing, I just hate seeing him in pain.(And I know he would be a bit angry about me even posting this)

thx [/quote]

Your husband’s a tough dude, much respect. Best of luck!

Is your husband named Douglas?

yea he is tough, thx buffalokilla.
Nope not douglas.
He just went to a VA appointment and first thing the Doctor told him after probbing through his muscles, was no lifting and no riding…LOL.
I f’ing hate doc’s, you have a disability and instead of them incouraging you going above and beyond by continue to live with the pain and take care of your health and happiness, the Doctors tell him he should give up lifting and quit riding his Harley. I understand that these two things don’t help, but really??? that is all we got from that appointment!!! Oh and the Doc says he can’t write any prescriptions…my husband didnt even ask about medicine…I swear that is all they care about meds and telling people what they can and can not do!
Sorry for the ranting, I appreciate everyone that has committed.

I have been having issues in the same area for a long time on and off:

2 years ago I fell on a heavy clean, with my elbow back and it hit the floor and bent my wrist backwards, damaging the connective tissues around the area. I couldn’t press or do pushups for a long time, but eventually it healed enough to get back to heavy lifting, with some pain that would come and go around the scaphoid and base of the thumb. But lately I have been benching really heavy and doing heavy db curls, and not not only is the pain slight and persistant on and radial side, I now have a sharp pain on the ulnar side. The whole area feels unstable and I can pull on my hand and things shift around. My thoughts on the issue is that the new pain is separate from the one pain and due to either hand position during reading or computer irritating the ulnar nerve and having it pushed over the edge by the lifting. The entire ulnar nerve area would fall asleep on that hand when I used it to read in bed, although that hasn’t happened since the pain has started. My wrists are fairly gracile and have been a weak point in heavy bench pressing. I’m afraid that I’m going to do some kind of permanent damage to it and be unable to lift heavy.

Maybe your husband could get a heavy set of powerlifting wraps and wrap them like a cast. In the next week I’m going to try and learn as much as possible about the wrists and hope to keep this thread alive with suggestions.

schultzie, sorry to hear about your injury. The pain sounds very familiar to my husbands. My husband goes through the same things, he “pops” his wrist after lifting due to the shifting and even just at the computer it also falls asleep. He has been using the lifting gloves with the wrist support straps for a while. We just came across a wrist brace at Academy not for sure the actual name since we threw away the casing, but its got Mercury in it and on the wrap it has Hg 80 on it. He likes it alot, not for lifting but for when the wrist is hurting him. I agree with keeping the thread alive, i am sure there are alot of lifters whose wrists bother them, I suppose it comes with the territory… good luck and wrap those wrists.

I’m booking an appointment with a chiropractor who powerlifts tomorrow

[quote]roxi wrote:
schultzie, sorry to hear about your injury. The pain sounds very familiar to my husbands. My husband goes through the same things, he “pops” his wrist after lifting due to the shifting and even just at the computer it also falls asleep. He has been using the lifting gloves with the wrist support straps for a while. We just came across a wrist brace at Academy not for sure the actual name since we threw away the casing, but its got Mercury in it and on the wrap it has Hg 80 on it. He likes it alot, not for lifting but for when the wrist is hurting him. I agree with keeping the thread alive, i am sure there are alot of lifters whose wrists bother them, I suppose it comes with the territory… good luck and wrap those wrists. [/quote]

Not sure if they’ll help or if they’re the best idea long term, but those aren’t the kind of wraps schultzie was talking about (Mueller is the brand name btw). They also provide nowhere near the support that a good pair of wrist wraps made for powerlifters will - the link below is to a good set of products if he wants to try them out. APT is a good company to buy from despite how bad their web design is. There are a number of ways to wrap for pressing heavy, but I don’t have much experience with how to wrap for his particular situation. If he wants to try wrapping the forearm much beyond the wrist he’ll need 36" wraps; I have 24" and they don’t go very high with my wrapping style. Note that when they say heavy to super heavy lifting in the recommendations, they mean that. The heavy wraps are VERY stiff. I’m not that strong yet so I use the Blood Stripe model and wrap around the wrist/base of the hand twice.

Mods - if this isn’t appropriate let me know and I’ll PM her the link

http://www.prowriststraps.com/weight_lifting_wrist_wraps_powerlifting_wrap

Buffalokilla, thanks for the link. I am sure those wraps will help out alot, at least alleviate some pain. They have more length then the ones on the gloves that is for sure. I will get some ordered so he can give them a try, see how they do.
Shultzie, hope all goes with apt.

thx