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Amongst all the joints in our body, the wrist is probably the most useful and the most complex of them all. For one thing, your daily activities most often depend on the dexterity and strength of your wrist. For another thing, your wrist is made up of an intricate network of eight carpal bones, five metacarpal bones and two forearm bones, all tightly packed and connected with nerves, blood vessels, and ligaments. As such, whenever you experience a sore wrist, you had better hop on to its treatments pronto.

Why Worry?

You might ask why the urgent emphasis on seeking treatment, either in the doctor’s office or in the home or both, for a painful wrist. It’s simple, really. When you fail to seek treatment as soon as possible, your concerns will be magnified three-fold due to more serious complications, which will have significant bearing on your quality of life. Think lose of feelings and dexterity on the injured, infected and inflamed wrist.

Your common daily duties such as working at your computer, washing dishes or playing sports such as golf can aggravate a sore wrist that has not been treated appropriately. In the end, you could wind up with more expensive treatment plans, complicated surgery and even potentially more pain for not paying attention to your sore wrist in the first place. When you are experiencing pain in your wrist, you should take notice and take action. When you do, you will have longer and healthier use of the most important joint in your body.

Common Causes

Many things can cause pain in your wrist; it could be a medical condition, injury, or overuse that causes soreness and inflammation in this joint. In order to arrive at a correct diagnosis your physician will ask you several questions. He or she will ask about the history of the pain or injury, how often it hurts, location, type of pain such as burning or stabbing, list of your current medications and other questions.

There are several medical conditions that result in a sore wrist. Things like ganglion cysts, arthritis, carpal tunnel and tendonitis can all cause pain and inflammation of your wrist joint. You can also bring on the pain by typing at your keyboard for long hours or playing certain sports. Any time you are engaging in repetitive motion you need proper form and support to prevent pain or injury. Another possibility is a sprain or cracked bone in one of the 15 bones of the wrist.

You should know that many of these causes are closely connected to one another. Any type of repetitive motion such as typing, that is done without the benefit of hand exercises and for long periods can result in this type of injury or inflammation of the wrist.

Care

You want to have the correct diagnosis before you begin treatment for a sore wrist. The wrong treatment is as bad as no treatment at all! Some instances will call for a RICE protocol such as in case of a sprain, while carpal tunnel syndrome may need surgery.

Your doctor is in a best position to tell you about the right treatment regimen for you. However, the RICE (Rest, Ice, Compress, and Elevate) protocol is a universal application for first aid and after-care. Lifestyle changes can also be prescribed especially in cases of arthritis. Surgery and medications (cortisone and pain relievers) should be thoroughly discussed with your doctor as pain in the physical and financial sense will be experienced.

A sore wrist can be truly painful in more ways than one. Nevertheless, if you pursue the correct medical treatment and attend to personal care it is a pain you can leave in the past.

Tom Nicholson has spent years caring for sufferers of carpal tunnel syndrome. You can follow this link to find out more regarding having asore wrist.