
I can tell you firsthand that you are WAY past the window of scapholunate repair because the same thing happened to me. I think it's a max of 8 weeks post-injury. The big deal is the idiotic misdiagnosis (a torn scapholunate shows up on an x-ray, it's farther away from the lunate bone that it should be). Like you, I was a victim of a series of foul-ups on the part of physicians, starting with a radiologist who read my initial x-ray and focused on my hand (broken fifth metacarpal, deformed, never reset) rather than my wrist. Then that orthopedic surgeon who missed the diagnosis. By the time I got a correct diagnosis from a competent physician, too late, I'll just have to have my wrist fused in a decade or so.
The treatment for your scapholunate ligament tear, right now, is probably cortisone injections. They help for some people; they helped my TFCC tear but they REALLY hurt for a couple days afterward since the joint is so small and the cortisone crystallizes in the joint. Max is 3 per year, since any more than 3 can cause more damage. Next would be arthoscopic debridement. Debridement takes like 30 minutes, you'd be under the whole time, and recovery is a couple weeks in a splint followed by some physical therapy (unless you have the self discipline to do it on your own). It helped me a little but on my latest MRI w/ an arthorgram, I have a giant black area, indicating that the joint is becoming arthritic. After that, ibuprofen, wrist braces, maybe anti-arthritis meds, whatever. I hope you don't have any nerve damage (I do). Wait who knows how long, and you're probably gonna end up having to have a fusion, unless there's some major breakthrough in the treatment of SLAC wrist.
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Posted by missagirl2888
I have been referred from an orthopedic surgeon to another orthopedic surgeon who specializes in hand surgery. I have also been in a splint for three months operating under a misdiagnosis of tendonitis. I was wondering if anyone knew what kinds of treatments injuries like this carries and what kind of recovery time is common. Thanks!