Does your wrist hurt? If so, you’re in some pretty good company. Milwaukee Bucks basketball star Giannis Antetokounmpo sprained his right wrist in a game against the Chicago Bulls on Thursday, Feb. 16, after falling on his hand — one of the most common causes of wrist injury.
The injury kept him from finishing the game and limited his participation in that weekend’s NBA All-Star Game. And even with that, he was lucky. It’s a long way to the ground when you’re nearly seven feet tall, and bracing your fall with your hand places a lot of stress on your wrist.
Anyone Can Experience a Hand or Wrist Injury
However, you don’t have to be seven feet tall to experience a wrist injury. Think of the late-February blizzard that dumped more than a foot of snow on Central Wisconsin. Underlying ice can combine with the snow to create an unexpected skating rink custom-made for slip-and-fall injuries.
Chronic hand-and-wrist conditions like carpal tunnel affect more than 5% of the population, according to scholarly estimates, and the more we rely on keyboards and mobile phones, the more we’re going to suffer from repetitive-use injuries.
In addition, as the keyboard generation ages, chances are the incidence of arthritis related to these conditions will go up.
Any way you look at it, hand and wrist injuries are a fact of our lives. We can’t eliminate them, though we can take steps to prevent them, such as:
- Using ergonomic keyboards
- Wearing treaded shoes or slippers in the house
- Wearing thick-soled boots or walking aids like YakTrax on slippery sidewalks
Hand and Wrist Conditions SPO Can Treat
If a chronic condition or a close encounter with an icy sidewalk has you sidelined with wrist pain, Stevens Point Orthopedics can help. Our team of skilled surgeons, physician’s assistants, and physical therapists can treat:
- Hand and wrist arthritis pain
- Sprains and strains involving the ligaments and tendons
- Overuse injuries to the muscle and tendons
- Nerve pain from carpal tunnel and other nerve entrapments
- Broken wrist, hand, and finger bones
- Wrist and hand instability from prior injury or joint laxity
Because everyone is susceptible to hand and wrist injuries, it’s important to have a resource close by that understands the various hand and wrist conditions and what can be done to treat them.
Stevens Point Orthopedics takes a patient-centered approach to treatment. That means we listen to you first and foremost. We want to know what hurts, how an injury occurred, and what successful treatment means to you.
We want to know the activities that are most important to you, so we can build a treatment plan that ends with your success in mind.
Generations of Central Wisconsin residents have experienced the personal, compassionate care SPO provides — and they’ve told their friends and neighbors. And nothing makes us feel better than you getting back to the things you love, and then recommending us to the people you care about.
If you’re having hand or wrist issues, visit our wrist and hand page for more information about these conditions, and learn how we can evaluate and treat the cause of your hand and wrist pain.
Are we here to give you a “hand” with your wrist pain? Absolutely!
