OPERATION!

One of my close friends had this done a year or so ago, and with her they did the two hands separately. I think she was still able to work, though - I suppose it depends what your job is. As I recall, she didn't totally lose the ability in her hands even when they were healing - she's not diabetic but I think she would have been able to self-inject. I think.

Steve,

Surely the choice would be yours to have both done at once or not?....... as it would present problems for injecting it probably would be advisable to get them done one at a time.

Hope the procedure works for you!

I have had steroid injections in both wrists and was back to work afterwards, teaching student nurses. The splints keep your wrists in a fixed position but you can still use your hands, although it makes typing very difficult so I stayed away from that for 48hrs. The reason for the splints is to to stop you using the wrists and hands too much, this enables the steroids to stay where they are required for longer. If you were to use the wrists and hands a great deal after the injection, this would increase the blood flow to the wrists and hands, which washes the steroids away from that area much more quickly.

They will probably ask you to use your hands as little as possible for up to 48 hours afterwards, but giving injections and eating etc is possible. You can also bathe yourself and do all the other personal things.

Just remember steroids raise the BS so it is likely you could have some spikes of high BS after the procedure. It should not persist for too long and you should ask you diabetes nurse how to deal with that if it concerns you. However my BS has usually returned to normal after 72 hours at the most.

Liz

I had one hand done last summer and was SOOO thrilled with the results that I had the other done this Easter. They rarely do two at one time as this makes it somewhat difficult to do anything as the hands are out of use for a few weeks. I have been so pleased with my results I have urged other succeeded to go ahead with the op, they have and are as pleased as me.-Kathy

I've had both my hands done but at different times, about 6 months apart. I can't imagine having had both done at the same time as your hand is totally out of use for some time and you'd therefore be able to do nothing if both hands were out of action. I'd highly recommend the surgery though, and I guess it depends on what you do for a living as to whether you can carry on working with just the one good hand.

I had to have 3 weeks off work each time I had a hand done, and I'm an administrator who does keyboard work all day.