The good, the bad, the ugly…

Met with the doctor today to discuss the medical report. It was a mix of good and bad, although probably about as good as I could’ve expected.

X Ray

• No evidence of a fracture. We knew that already.
• In particular, the scaphoid and distal radius so intact. That’s good.
• Mild degenerative changes are present at the distal radioulner joint. Not really surprising given my age.

Ultrasound

• 3 x 3 mm hypoechoic defect in the triangular fibrocartilage complex due to a tear. In layman’s terms, a TFCC injury.
• Signs of extensor carpi ulna’s tenosynovitis. In layman’s terms, the tendon sheath is inflamed which is causing pain and swelling
• No sign of carpal tunnel syndrome. This is good.

Next steps

Part of this will be covering how the Australian public health system covers this. For those not in the know, we have a mix of public and private health.

In Australia, the outcome and next steps of this is multi pronged approach. When your diagnosis is confirmed, the doctor asks if you want them to support putting together a rehabilitation plan. I signed a form to get this moving, they will call me to set up an appropriate time for both a nurse and doctor to meet with me. At this appointment, they will discuss the recovery in full to articulate what I should and shouldn’t be doing during my recovery. In conjunction to this, they have your referral to a physiotherapist ready to go at this appointment. The referral is important, because with a formal referral, your cost of physio is mostly covered by Medicare which is the government medical system. You can still have physio done without a referral, but that requires you to have private health cover, which I do as well.

Potential prognosis

Due to my previous back injury (QL Oblique), I have a follow-up appointment already set for the physio tomorrow, so I’ll start the process of my hand rehab in the interim with him because my QL oblique is fully recovered.

I decided to feed the imaging report to ChatGPT to see what the prognosis is.

It has suggested it’s a moderate tear with good rehabilitation prospects. Small is under 2 mm, large is over 4mm.

It suggested the inflamed tendon is fairly common with TFCC injuries.

From a recovery perspective, it has suggested 70 to 90% recovery with full rehab.

The realistic phases it’s given are as follows:

1. Acute settle phase 1 to 3 weeks with pain reduction
2. Rehab phase 4 to 8 weekswith focus on strength and stability
3. Return to Golf 6 to 10 weeks with gradual play, including chipping and putting
4. Full recovery 10 to 16 weeks with no restrictions

The biggest risks it has highlighted are as follows:

• Play through pain
• Keep stressing rotation

This contained into a chronic TCC tear with persistent ECU tendon issues and long-term damage.

It will be interesting to compare this to the feedback from the physio tomorrow. I’ll provide an update when that occurs. I have no intention of following the ChatGPT guidelines without proper medical advice so this was more of me being inquisitive than anything else.

Total cost to date

For those interested, my cost (out of pocket) to date is $100 for the Xray and ultrasound, and $25 for the over the counter Voltaren anti-inflammatory tablets I bought, and $35 for the wrist brace. I could have had the scan free if I went to a hospital but I used a private location which charged $350 and transferred $250 back to my account for the Medicare refund.