Left wrist pain

[subtrax]

Anyone else have pain in their left wrist? Sensei says most injuries are in the right wrist but not mine. I don't think it's carpel tunnel, at least i hope not. It started about three months ago and it progressively got worse and now i can't even hold a shinai in my left hand without severe pain.

I'm quite worried. Any remedies or suggestions.

[Masahiro]

Please see a doctor as soon as possible. If the pain is so drastic then professional help is the best solution.

[Neil Gendzwill]

See a doctor. Most likely explanation is tendonitis.

[mystic_kendoka]

also dont practice before seeing a doctor, if it hurts that much to hold a shinai..

[Shazzanzzz]

i had left wrist pain too, but mostly from weights i think. After i stopped lifting weights for a few month, it went away. I also didn't do too much suburis in practice for a while though.

[souljah]

I used to have quite severe pain in my left wrist. I think it was a combination of poor grip, poor warm-up and stetching, and overdoing things. I gave it plenty of rest and a sensei showed me a slightly different grip to what I was shown when I first started, and things are much better now.

Your case sounds really bad; I'd go to the doc's like everyone else has said.

[chosenkendo]

subtrax,

try going to class, or take up ping pong.

[nodachi]

How much suburi are you doing to cause pain in your wrist? One dojo I've practiced at did 100 suburi with no rest in there. It's not difficult muscle wise, but did put stress on my wrist and made it hurt. Other dojos I've practiced at usually do sets of 30 with brief 15/20 second rests between sets. This didn't cause the pain.

Just a thought, and see a doctor... :)

[Hotei]

Neil-san is likely our winner. Tendonitis is pretty prevalent amongst kendoka. There is hope, however. You will need to ask your Sensei's permission, but a simple wrist brace (available through any bogu supply - that's how common it is) will take some of the strain off the wrist.

Another good practice is to ice your wrist immediately after class. You don't have much room in there, and swelling does nothing, but cause more damage.

I will repeat the above mentioned advice and suggest that you see a doctor before continuing practice.

Good luck!

[subtrax]

thanks a bunch. there's genuine love in this forum. that's kendo!

and thanks chosen, your right, ping pong is so much better than kendo...just stop smacking my armpit!

[Hotei]

One of the basic tenets of Bushido is to repsect and assist anyone that asks. Ta-da! It works! :wink:


But seriously, I've found this forum to be really helpful on several subjects. Sure, there are those that just want to fling their knowledge at you, but for the most part the posts are genuine.

[kendosa]

If tiger bam doesn’t work, it’s time to go to see doctor.

[Hotei]

If tiger balm doesn't work, it's time to amputate. . .

[Neil Gendzwill]

If it's tendonitis, your doctor will likely advise rest and a course of anti-inflammatories, most likely just ibuprofen unless you can't take that. The doses your doctor will prescribe are double or triple the recommended doses on the bottle - I was quite surprised.

[subtrax]

I haven't tried tiger balm yet, at least not on my wrist, but i did take some advil yesterday for a volleyball tourny and my wrist feels so much better today.

time to get the family size bottle.

ok, i took 4 yesterday, and if the docs are recommending twice or more of the dosage, should i take 8 everyday or 12? 12 pills of anything sounds dangerous. am i going to o.d. from ibuprofin? and do you know if i should take 4 pills twice a day or 2 pills 4 times a day?

thanks,
augy

[Neil Gendzwill]

Whoah. Go see your doctor. Don't take a pile of ibuprofen on my say-so. I'm just predicting a likely outcome.

[twix]

so months ago i posted a query about pain in my left arm/ wrist: http://www.kendo-world.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2440

i continued training for a month or so, until i couldn't stand the pain anymore, then saw a physiotherapist. he thought it's a combination of overexertion + bad keyboard positioning. i rested the arm for a couple of weeks as according to his advice, then went back to training although the pain hadn't really gone away, also by his advice, because 'exercising a weak arm may assist in helping it get stronger.'*
um wrong.
the pain got worse, so in april i decided to ditch the physiotherapist and go see a sports doctor. an x-ray and ct scan ensued, nothing was found. so they told me to get a bone scan (nuclear scan), and bam! i got a hairline fracture on my ulna. no training for 6 weeks. yet i came back after 3 weeks and reinjured it again. now that i can't train properly, i try to protect my left arm all the time, resulting in using a helluva lot more of right hand than ever necessary, and wrecking my grips positioning in the process, and everytime i try to return to where i was before the injury, i just get worse and worse. and now even my elbows and wrists click.. ugh!.

sucks to be me and so stubborn. so now i'm just waiting for my arm to heal as my self-pity turns into self-loathing. 2 more weeks of no training, hopefully my arm will be ok by then.

the moral of the story is, if it's really painful and it doesn't go away, there's probably something wrong. rest it, and if things don't improve, see your [sports] doctor. if he tells you to stop training for __ months, do as he says, it's not worth it to be so stubborn.

*: before seeing the doctor, i was also advised the physiotherapist to take ibuprofen 4 times a day, 1 each. then a frequently-self-medicating chemist friend told me that 1 will do nothing, 2 is for muscles and 3 for bones, so i ended up taking 3 x 3 a day. nothing really happened as ibuprofen can't really help a fracture, but after a while i did begin feeling like <insert a painkiller-addicted-celebrity name here>.

i'm off to do suburi now :)

[Old Warrior]

TWIX

Now you've got it right. The issue I face is deciding the difference between pain and soreness. I would never train in real pain. But, given the shape of my knees (formerly torn acl/mcl etc.), I live with soreness. I am, forever, trying to decide - has the swelling gone down enough to train and will the soreness disappear as my body warms up. And, I live in fear that the worn tendons will just quit on me. At this instant I am wrestling with this issue.

[subtrax]

wow, twix. thanks for the info. it seems that pain and soreness, even fractures occur in kendo more than i thought. do you remember how you fractured it? did you feel the pain instantly or did it progress?

[twix]

wow, twix. thanks for the info. it seems that pain and soreness, even fractures occur in kendo more than i thought. do you remember how you fractured it? did you feel the pain instantly or did it progress?
i don't remember how i fractured it - we only discovered the fracture 2 months after it happened (as the bone scan revealed the bone was already in the middle of healing process, swamped with blood). the location of the fracture on the ulna was as such that the pain was felt in my wrist instead of my arm.
heh i think the pain started as a discomfort, and as i continued training it got worse and worse, to the point that doing joge buri and gedan in kata put me in horrible stabbing pain that went up my spine.

not being able to train and watching everyone else having fun (and progressing) hurts more though :'( *sob, sniff...*

[Pokie]

Anyone else have pain in their left wrist? Sensei says most injuries are in the right wrist but not mine. I don't think it's carpel tunnel, at least i hope not. It started about three months ago and it progressively got worse and now i can't even hold a shinai in my left hand without severe pain.

I'm quite worried. Any remedies or suggestions.

Wow, experienced same too, i tried to crank out my suburi and it took me out of kendo for atleast 3 months...i cudnt even pick it..but that was my right wrist..not my left, but think same problem though. Hrmmm I hope it's better now..have fun in kendo..learn your body's limits and lil signs that you should rest and you'll be fine.

[Tholon]

Back on track.

Go see a doctor, if you already haven't.
But also talk to your Sensei. A problem like that just don't occur from nowhere. It is caused by something. The way you hold hold your Shinai, the way you move your feet. Could be anything that makes your hand unbalanced, which is often the root cause for any athletic injury. And if you don't correct that the problem will occur again.

But then again, I'm a newbie. So take my advice for what you think it's worth.