What is reddit's opinion of Mueller Reversible Thumb Stabilizer, Black, One Size Fits Most | Stabilizing Thumb Brace?

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A lot of my pain started at the base of my thumb, in my palm. Then eventually the rest of my fingers and my wrist started having pain. Just a bit when I used them a lot at first, then they suddenly hurt all of the time in both hands.

Your symptoms being different doesn't necessarily mean "not tendonitis," though. Hands are complicated and have a lot of parts to screw up. My doctor eventually landed on "tendonitis, I guess" after three specialists basically said "idk, go see this other specialist."

But if you're having pain or discomfort, that's your body telling you that you need to cool it for a while. I'd take at least a week completely off from games with controllers and see if you still feel something off with your hand/thumb after the break. Since most of my pain was in my thumb, sleeping with a thumb stabiliser on helped mine feel better even before I managed to get to the first doctor.

Or... you could keep playing RL for hours a day and ignore the pain like I did. For the first six weeks or so I couldn't even use my computer mouse without pain - I grabbed my little ambidextrous mouse and used my left hand with that or my laptop's trackpad since it didn't hurt to just use one finger on that. Holding/using a controller was out of the question. Instant pain. After those six weeks, the pain wasn't constant and I could use my normal computer mouse without pain. It wasn't until five months had passed that I could hold and use a controller without my hands hurting, but even then I could only go around thirty minutes before I had to start worrying about soreness. Now I can go around 1-2 hours without pain or worrying about any soreness, but if I try to go beyond that I feel it the next day and have to make sure I don't play again for a few days.

Ugh, I feel for him. DQT gets the name "mom thumb" because it happens a lot from the repetitive motions inherent to caring for a newborn, but really it could be caused by any repetitive motion (typing, handi-crafts, woodwork, shooting, writing, etc.). I think knitting and crocheting exacerbated for me what the pregnancy swelling kicked off.

Anyway - so from what I understand, the DQT is caused by inflammation of the nerve within the tunnel. Nerve swells up too big and is pinched off, basically. The cortisone shots work by injecting an anti-inflammatory directly into the affected area. If you can get the inflammation to go down, you can release the pressure on the nerve so that it begins to repair and is less likely to become inflamed again. There is a numbing agent, or some sort of pain relief, within the shot that results in an almost-instant "masking" of pain, so it's important to continue wearing the braces and limiting use of the hands - even if the pain goes away. I remember the first time I got the shot I went from not being able to open my hands enough to grasp a coke can to being able to make an L shape with my thumb and pointer finger by the time I made it back to my car.

What kind of brace is he wearing? He wants to make sure they stabilize the thumb and that he wears it while sleeping and as much as possible while awake.

Yep very similar to that. It went a little bit further up my palm though, like this [link]

Could try using on of those wrist brace things.

It could also be related to you're keyboard. Whether the angle you type like those ergonomic ones or feedback from the keys like bottoming out on a mechanical. New keyboard or the rubber grommets should help with these though the grommets are a pretty low difference.

What kind of wrist brace? I used to have carpal tunnel so I starting wearing one of those braces. After researching my symptoms more it seems like a thumb stabilizer is what I need. This one arrives today.

[link]

Yup yup yup to what everyone has said (Mommy's thumb/tenosynovitis). I had it when my daughter (now 1) was 2 months old. What worked for me was a wrist brace -- this exact one. I wore it as much as possible but what especially helped was wearing it while sleeping (which didn't seem obvious at first) since you wind up sleeping on it in weird positions which can make it worse. I was diligent about wearing the brace, not picking up the kid by the armpits (don't hook your thumbs under the pits, instead put thumbs on ribcage and wrap rest of hands around and then lift) and icing it and took two months to clear up for me.

Taping would work best because you can customize and provide support for just the ligament or tendon in question but in the absence of a good trainer it's tough to do a good job. Plus over a couple months you can go through a lot of tape. I ended up purchasing this: [link]

From searching through some of the volleyball-specific reviews it sounds like it adds some support without decreasing mobility, but we'll see. Might end up just going with the tape.

Sorry to hear you're also having issues on your other hand! Unfortunately I don't have experience with a vertical mouse, but it feels good when I try setting my hand in a sideways pose as if holding such as mouse and moving it around, so perhaps it'll help. I'd be interested to hear other people's experience with it as well.

By rest I meant giving your hands a break, although sleep is important too. :) These are some stretches recommended for carpal tunnel. Personally I like doing the wrist stretch, finger exercise and grip strengthening. These are the gloves I used for De Quervain. They're great for that but I don't recommend it for carpal tunnel as they don't have wrist support. For me the changes that helped me the most are having good sitting/ typing ergonomics, stretches, moving with my arm instead of wrists, and offloading macros on my keyboard so I can click the mouse less.

Good luck!