So I finally met with a plastic surgeon about my "fat finger". He said that he doesn't believe that I've got cysts in my finger at all, he believes that I actually have vascular malformation in my hand (three times, between the fingernail and middle knuckle, kid you not...when they all flare, especially if they all flare at the same time, it makes my finger pretty well unuseable.)

At any rate, he's ordered an MRI of my hand for next Monday. He says that pretty much the only way he WON'T do surgery is if the malformations are wrapped around my bones. He says in that case, he'd be creating more of a problem by doing the surgery than he'd be solving, and in that case, he would fit me for a special compression glove that would compress the formations when they swell (to try to speed up draining), and that'd pretty much be that.

He also said that they've got a pretty high rate of reoccurance too, because without getting terribly invasive and going into the tendons and all that, that you really can't be assured that you've got the whole thing.

So, thoughts? Has anybody had this sort of surgery, or surgery on their hands in general, that you can talk to me about recovery time, and all that? I tried gooling, and all the stuff I found seemed to be more about kids and their lips. So considering I'm not a kid, and we're not talking about my lip, that wasn't super helpful...

Is this guy a hand surgeon? If not, I would advise getting a second opinion from a hand surgeon. Hand surgery is very delicate business!

kk~

Plastic surgeon, yep. He's weird as can be, but he's well qualified.

Lol! doctors are sometimes, aren't they? Heh, I could tell you some stories...

But, hey, back to you, I don't know much about your specific procedure but I do wish you the best. I was considering a hand procedure but we decided to do a wait and see aproach. It was a cyst on my wrist and I had a needle aspiration done which gol darn hurt like HECK! After that, I wasn't really in a mood to go further if I didn't have to. It's smaller, but still there.

I have a friend who had carpal tunnel surgery (the old kind) and she was about a month getting back up to speed.

kk~

kandykane wrote:

It was a cyst on my wrist and I had a needle aspiration done which gol darn hurt like HECK!

Oh, KK, was it a Bible cyst / ganglion cyst? My boyfriend has one of those since he's a drummer (they often come as a result of repetitive movements) and was considering surgery when he had insurance. But the doctor said there was no guarantee it wouldn't come back even with surgery, and it tends to go away and come back cyclically on its own. He doesn't have insurance anymore, and decided to Google some self treatment when it was really bothering him...let's just say it involved a paperback book and a hammer and leave it at that. Glad he did it when I wasn't around, because I would have been freaking out.

T, no real advice, but a second opinion doesn't sound too out of the ordinary since there's some disagreement on what it actually is. (I've been going through this myself with another health issue...it's not fun, but it's necessary.) Good luck in getting it fixed!

Dani

^ LOL, yup. And no thank you to that "book" or "Bible" treatment. Dr said slamming a book on your hand could actually cause more damage. But yeah, the BANG ruptures the cyst. I had another one on the back side of one of my hands years ago and it did go away. In fact I didn't even notice it was gone at first. Hoping this one does the same, eventually. And yes, they can come back which is why I did not want surgery, but it was painful at first, a lot of numbness, it was pressing ona nerve which that did improve some after the aspiration.

Sorry for hijacking your thread, T.

kk~

T, no real advice, but a second opinion doesn't sound too out of the ordinary since there's some disagreement on what it actually is. (I've been going through this myself with another health issue...it's not fun, but it's necessary.) Good luck in getting it fixed!

I've got an MRI scheduled for Monday night, so that's kind of my second opinion. One of the spots does match the description of a vascular malformation, one it's kind of sketchy but you might be able to connect them, the other, I don't think there's much of a chance that was what it was.

He said he wanted the MRI because he wanted to be absolutely certain of what he was going to see when he got it open.

So they have to reschedule the MRI. Evidentally, there's some sort of special equipment that they have to MRI a hand, that they don't have on site, and can't get on site by Monday. So...there we go.