Wednesday was my hospital appointment with a consultant about the mystery pain in my hands and wrists.  After an entertaining morning in which I gained 4.5lbs on the hospital scales, and had to have my blood pressure (107/72 if you are interested) taken 4 times before the machine worked I was finally ushered into the consultant.

Once we had established that the pain had lasted longer than a month (what her note said) and that my doctor hadn’t sent through the blood test results or my x-rays she prodded me a bit, I said ‘ouch’ a bit, and gave her my ‘pain diary’ for the last 3 months.

Eventually she referred me for a scan at somepoint in the next 3-4 weeks, with a follow up appointment 7-8 weeks from now. With lots of bloods to be taken now.

She said she thought the wrist pain and the hand pain were unrelated and that it was possible the wrist pain is tendonosis (not tendinitis).  She also told me that when she had tendonosis she had to wear wrist splints every day, all day, for two years.  Oh yes, that’s exactly what I wanted to hear.  I’m not inclined to agree with the two seperate things diagnosis, purely because it would be just too coincidental to have things go wrong in both wrists and both hands within days of each other.

It’s about this point that I dug my heels in about the drugs that I am currently on not working, and that that 8 weeks at least before getting drugs that do work was unacceptable.  The consultant suggested I try diclophenic – which I pointed out I had already tried and couldn’t take because of the side effects.  She then suggested I try paracetamol.  Yes, you read that right.  Paracetamol.  I can’t get dressed in the mornings, can’t ride my bike, can’t brush my own hair and the NHS’s best suggestion is paracetamol.  I may have pulled a good face at this point, because she then suggested that I take the paracetamol in conjunction with the current tablets (naproxen) as sometimes the two work together to be more effective, and then she wrote me a prescription for tremadol (morphine) to use if my hands are particularly bad.  It’s only 14 days worth of morphine, and I have at least eight weeks to wait, but it’s a start.

Yesterday the trick of taking paracetamol and naproxen worked to take my hands to ‘almost normal’l – which was nice.  Then I realised I’d be running out of naproxen in the next 7 days, so I tried to get a prescription from my GP.  I have to have an appointment (it can’t just be a repeat) and the next appointment is, wait for it (cos I am), the 24th July.

So, long story short.  We still don’t know.  We have no idea and it will be at least 8 weeks before we get any further.  Unless my blood tests show up something insane.