I have had a near life long battle with these things and I’m done with it. I have a surgery consult with an ortho on January 9th.
I have a good sized cyst on the back of my left wrist that doesn’t hurt right now but has been a source of pain for years that comes and goes. I have what is considered and occult cyst in my right wrist that really f’n hurts right now. That’s my dominant hand and it is causing me problems. I have read that surgery is 90-95% effective in permanently removing the cysts where aspiration is maybe 50/50. I just want them gone.
What’s the recovery time from people who have gone through the surgery? Not only from a normal life perspective but from a triathlon life perspective as I have the Texas 70.3 in April and IMTX in May and I kind of need my hands to swim.
I would assume the doc would talk me out of it (and/or not do it) but I wouldn’t be opposed to having both wrists done at the same time to lessen the total recovery time.
Back in HS i had one on my right wrist. I went to the doctor because it was really starting to bother me, I played basketball and it was affecting my shot because of the discomfort and pain. Anyway go to see the doctor and he is pushing and touching and everthing else he needed to do to the area. I set up an appoinment for surgery for the next week. The next morning, i can not move my hand at all, and the cyst seems to have disappeared. Go back to the doctor and he said that he must have caused it to pop with all his touching and pushing on it. Unless it comes back you don’t need the surgery. Pain was gone in a couple of days and i gained full motion after about 3 days, and the cyst hasn’t return in 30 years. Not that this applies to you, but i know how it feels to have these things.
Cant you just whack it with something to pop it? My friend had one on his wrist and he went to a doctor (here in China) the doctor hit it with a big book, it popped it or something but hasnt been back for over 6 months now.
Cant you just whack it with something to pop it? My friend had one on his wrist and he went to a doctor (here in China) the doctor hit it with a big book, it popped it or something but hasnt been back for over 6 months now.
My mom received this exact advice from her doctor many years ago (25?) in the States. She never saw that one through.
My wife had one on the inside of the wrist and had surgery. Upon operating, the physician found that it was adjacent to a nerve and he had to be cautious as to not cut the nerve. What should have been a short recovery turned out to be a long recovery and it took a year for my wife to be 100% pain free. Because she uses her hands for quilting, which takes constant and heavy usage, she had to find other temporary interests. I suspect you should be able to run shortly after the surgery, but bike handlebar vibration and the swim catch, will hinder you for at least a few months.
By the way, the book cure does occasionally work, and is known as the Bible cure. (You take the family Bible, and whack it.)
Good Luck.
Whacking it with a book is stupid on many levels that I’m not even entertaining that option.
While I want surgery to remove these things once and for all (or at least the 90%+ chance), aspiration might be the better short term solution as far as training and racing goes given my schedule.
Yours may be more complicated than the soft “Bible cyst” and might involve a joint capsule, in addition to an extensor tendon. See a surgeon that does hands.
My wife had a large ganglion cyst on her foot that she finally had surgically removed after having it reappear after aspiration three or four times. The surgery was actually way more invasive than I expected it to be. For my wife, the total size of the cyst was about three times what was actually showing on the top of her foot. She was off her feet completely for about a week, and then took about six or so weeks to recover fully. She was back to cycling in about four weeks and back to running in about six. The doctor made her stay out of the water for the two weeks that the stitches were still in, though I never would’ve followed that advice. I imagine that the wrist surgery would be less of a hassle to recover from than the foot surgery.
Eventually, I imagine, you’ll have to make the time to have them removed. I’d count on at least two weeks of not training at all following the surgery. So, you’ll have to weigh whether it’s better to do it now or wait until after your big events for the year are done.
I had a ganglion cyst on the back of my left wrist from age 11 through 27 (I was a pretty serious piano player from age 5 through mid-20’s). I heard about the Bible idea and gave it a go at age 12 . . . finally ended up popping the thing, but it came back. Stupid kid stunt - wouldn’t recommend it.
When I was older and only moderately wiser, I had it aspirated. It came back. I had it aspirated ~10 times over the course of the years and it always came back. At age 21, I had the surgery. It came back. At age 22, I had the surgery again. This time, I suffered surface nerve damage (couldn’t feel someone touching my hand, couldn’t tell hot from cold). AND, it came back. At age 27, I had the surgery again and gave up piano playing and used an external keyboard for my laptop that was ergonomic.
It hasn’t come back and ‘most’ of the nerve damage has resolved itself.
I hope you have better luck. I wasn’t a triathlete at the time, but I would think that two things will be affected by it - swimming and potentially riding. If your aero bars are uber-aggressive, you may want to switch them out for a slightly less aggressive set until you heal properly (ie a set that does not have you stretching your wrist while you are in aero). With the scare tissue and slight nerve damage, I have a less-than-aero set of bars to ensure I don’t aggravate the wrist.
It sounds stupid but wacking one with a heavy book used to actually be the treatment - or a treatment, it probably wasn’t the only option. I had one on my wrist when I was a teenager and when my doctor told my mom and I to hit it with a heavy book and it would go away we laughed thinking he was joking. We did it when we got home and it went away. Probably 30 years ago and it hasn’t come back.
This was a doctor in the US by the way, not China. I thought I must be remembering it wrong or I had something else so I googled it. Wikipedia lists the bible option as a treatment years ago.
My wife had the surgery on both wrists and elbows in June 2012 and her recovery time was vert brief. She applied polysporin on the stitch scars and the pain was gone immediately. The cysts on her wrists were beginning to impinge on the nerves, which our local GP and surgeons didn’t diagnose. We ended up flying to another province and getting the surgery required. She had all the ganglions removed at the same time.
She is fine now, with no residual pain and minimal scarring.
I had one for about two years, and was getting to the point where I had just set up an appointment with a doctor.
Then I decided to go cliff-jumping one day to cool off. Launched off a ~55ft cliff and didn’t keep my hand pinned to my side perfectly. As I was climbing back up the cliff to jump again, I noticed the cyst was gone. Haven’t had a problem since.
Therefore, I’ve concluded that the proper treatment for a ganglion cyst is to jump off a cliff.
My wife had one of her left wrist. She had the surgery, and for about 6 months it was gone. Then the cyst grew back. So after a night drinking I told my wife that I would take care of the cyst for her. She put her hand on the table, I took the bible and hit the cyst. My wife was in a good amount of pain that night from the pop of the cyst, but it was gone and it never came back.