Sorry for the O/T rant/vent. This is hard to type with one hand so likely won't be long. I had surgery on Tuesday (5/26) and it is still so swollen, ugly and totally bruised. When I wad around 9, I shattered my wrist pretty badly. Bones repaired themselves but the blood supply to one bone didn't. Eventually, that bone died so when I was about 32, I had the dead one removed and a prosthetic bone put in. All seemed well...fast forward 31 years to 6 months ago. I started to notice pain in my wrist but not in the middle ...this time towards the outside of my wrist...on my little finger side. After a few weeks, I called my family doc and asked for an x-ray..thinking maybe I had cracked something. No such luck. My prosthetic bone had apparently dislocated. Ok so just put it back, right??? NO! They don't do that anymore and it was very likely that the rubber & silicone 'bone' was disintegrating! WHAT? First hand surgeon wanted to do a fusion to which both my GP and I said NO. Second hand surgeon gave me a few other options....steroid injection first...didn't work. Next option was what I had done on Tuesday, He went in, removed the fake 'bone' which had begun to disintegrate, took out two other bones (surgery was labeled a proximal row carpectomy), cleaned up the area, cut a nerve to my wrist and released some tendon sheath near my little finger. What I wasn't aware was even a possibility was that I now have 2 pins in my wrist....pins that they will apparently pull out in a few weeks. I'm in a soft cast right now and my fingers and the part of my palm/top of my hand that I can see is black/blue and totally swollen. It looks like I stuck my hand in ashes or something. I've had way too many ortho surgeries to count and I'm well aware of the pain factor. The swelling/bruising took me by surprise.
Question.....has anyone had pins that were removed in the office? Doesn't it hurt like heck? I'm totally freaked out by the thought of using some medical pliers to pull them out. Surgeon said he used them to help put the remaining bones in the correct position because they had apparently turned or something. I made the mistake of watching a youtube video of the procedure and it looks barbaric! Any advice?