When you typically think of getting injured at work, several labor-intensive jobs with heavy lifting, machinery accidents, or similar types likely come to mind. But in an office environment, plenty of opportunities for accidents present themselves, including falls, lifting small loads around your work setting, and colliding with other objects.
Several medical issues can occur while you’re sitting at your desk, leading to problems with multiple joints and connected soft tissue, such as your wrists. Many issues lead to wrist pain, and to determine the best ways to prevent having them or dealing with them again, let’s review the types of wrist problems this setting can bring, and figure out how to avoid them.
Dr. David Dickerson and the experienced staff at Performance Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine serve the Shrewsbury, Toms River, and Wall Township, New Jersey, areas for a range of joint issues, including problems in the wrists.
Your wrists form a complex network of bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons, and nerves that allow for a wide range of motion, and pain can come from problems in one or more parts of these joints, including:
The pain often gets classified under one of the bones in the forearm, as either ulnar or radial.
Numerous reasons can lead to your experiencing wrist pain, such as:
Repetitive motions, when performed repeatedly over long periods of time, can lead to repetitive strain injuries, resulting in pain, swelling, and nerve compression.
Multiple types of arthritis create pain and other symptoms, including osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, which inflame joints and wear down the cartilage.
Inflammation of the tendons in the wrists leads to sharp pain and irritation due to small tears in the tissue.
A ganglion is a benign cystic lesion, and ganglion cysts often form in joints like the wrists, at the base of the back of the hand. It can be painless or lead to nerve compression.
Protecting your wrists can be accomplished through strength exercises and various activities. You’ll need to stretch your forearms and use wrist flexion, extension, and pronation/ supination to build up the soft tissue. A type of kettlebell exercise called the farmer’s walk can also improve strength in these joints, and even playing with Silly Putty improves grip strength.
If you’re dealing with an injury and working on recovering, be sure to avoid doing exercises like downward dog, burpees, pushups, bench presses, bicep curls, and planks.
We offer several methods of treating wrist pain depending on your specific issues, so if you want relief, schedule an appointment with Dr. Dickerson and the Performance Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine team today.
