#lifewithkienbocks

I have had two surgeries because of my kienböck's disease. I don't recall these surgery names, but essentially my radius bone in my arm was shortened to relieve unbearable pressure it was putting on my lunate bone. Then, about a year and almost 4 months later I had my lunate bone - with the rest of that tier of bones - removed. Dying bone pain is now gone; yay! However, pain from having a bone sawed into pieces does still come, too; boo!!! For anyone with arthritis, you will know what this feels like on certain weather days or holding something cold for far too long. It just starts to hurt and when it does, it stinks! It is like kienböck's pain but less severe for those who don't know what it's like to have this pain. To paint a picture: have you ever broken an arm and been casted for a month at minimum? On cold weather days, for some people, you feel almost the same pain as when it was healing. But, being silly, little me... I did yard work without a brace on. I know there is such thing as rebuilding muscle with kienböck's after it is "cured", but I am used to babying my arm so much I can actually do many things one handed. However, I will give everyone with kienbock's a warning: NEVER EVER do strenuous activity without a brace. Pushing 3 days later my arm still hurts! All because I was a moron and lifted some dead tree branches that didn't with more than 5lbs! If I wore my brace that would've been cut to 1 day. Now I can't even hold this phone up to post!

I feel like an idiot now.

I’m sad I couldn’t have posted this on the 3 year mark of my last Kienbock’s surgery - my “I’m ‘cured’!” surgery - but this is my scar today. I got lucky and managed to capture it all (believe it or not, the very bottom, my stitch scarring, and the top age beginning to fade white, so it doesn’t always show up anymore).

Life with Kienbock's and tattoos

So back on mother's day of this year I got a tattoo of Doug Bradley's signature (long story short: he's one of my favorite horror character actors so I got his signature tattooed on my arm). Now I've worn my brace from my old Kienbock's days to bed because below my first surgery I woke up and my arm was twisted and fully bent, something that's really painful if you have Kienbock's disease; ever since then I've worn my arm brace to bed (though I give myself a break on Wednesday because it drives me insane sometimes). Anyway, my arm brace lately has left these marks on my arm from the stockinette being pushed on my arm from the velcro straps. It got to the point that it left a semi permanent mark on my arm so I had to go a week without my brace; something that's both scary and kind of nice (but mostly scary), and within a week it went away but left my arm sore at the wrist. Now I don't know anyone with Kienbock's because it's a rare disease to have it in general, but if you have Kienbock's I study wasting your brace to bed but also be careful with it. Kienbock's isn't something to joke around with, even after your Kienbock's disease is fixed it can still hurt to have it. My disease was fixed by removing bones in my wrist, and because of the nerve damage I could get a tattoo and it barely hurt, in fact some of it I didn't even feel! When I had my first surgery my doctor modified my nerve so it made it less painful to have my Kienbock's, which I later had removed and thus fixed my disease and the levels of pain I had. But as a result I'll never be able to fully bend my wrist again, which I'm okay with.

What my arm looks like after a night of wearing my braces. The more red outcome is my newer brace without a stockinette, and the more pale arm is with my 4 year old "old brace" with a stockinette.

So lately I’ve begun to notice my arm is killing me once again, to the point I need to wear a brace again during the day, and I have nothing wrong with my arm anymore. My Kienbock’s has been gone for over a year, and nothing is wrong so I can’t go to the doctor and say “my arm hurts, please help.” Because of my newer, 2 year old-ish brace (my “old” brace is a good 4 years old) brace I get this little blemish on my hand, and since I don’t wear sock things (my name for stockinettes) between my skin and brace I got a welt-like mark on this blemish as it looked like a capital “A” instead of a lowercase “o.” I put a stockinette on and it went away, but lately I’m noticing pain is coming back, but not in the same area of my former dying bone, but more where I had tendinitis, but it’s the bone instead of the tendon. Why me? :(

So since my last surgery I have not been able to fully bend my wrist since my kienbock's bone, along with the rest of the tier of bones was removed. Because of this I was told I'll never be able to fully bend or rotate my wrist again, which I can live with since the pain it was causing was utterly horrible, so because of this I can't do a proper push up without having to use my fist instead. Since my sister and I have a trainer, we go to the gym every Monday night to train with him, and one of the last times we went he made me do push ups on a bar. I'm slanted against the bar and push up that way, and at first I thought I couldn't do it, but I could... kind of! Day = made :D