DD1 operation is booked, trigger thumb

anyone else have any experience with trigger thumb release operation? DD has a bent thumb which has something to do with the ligament (apparenlty mainly older ppl get it). its meant to be a very simple procedure but i am still ****ting myself. i feel sad because she is most likely gonna be scared and want her mummy but i presume i wont be able to go all the way into the theatre or wherever with her. plus when she waks up in recovery i wont be able to see her til she is back on the ward, she is gonna be so scared.

also, worried about complications of the operation and infection etc, and basically just being really paranoid and scared about it all. worrying about nothing i hope but geez i am gonna be a nervous wreck.

My neice had this operation done a few months ago a few months before she turned 3, SIL was able to go in with her for when she was put under anesthtic but then had to leave, the operation went really well, no complications and recovery was great. She had both her thumbs done at once, they only problem they came across was neice somehow managed to unwrap her bandages on the 1 1/2 hour trip home so they had to go to the doctors and get them re-wrapped.

My DD had major jaw surgery done when she was 9 weeks old, it doesn't matter how big or small the operation is they are your 'baby' and you wish they never have to go through these things. She had another when she was 4 months and has another operatrion at 18 months and although it is nothing compared to her first I am dredsing it already, we are mothers what more can I say.

I am sure that everything is going to be fine, children bounce back so much better than us.

Best of Luck :D.

im sure you will be allowed to go the whole way with her till she is put under aneastetic. and will be taken straight to her in recovery.

the child needs their parent and the nurses cant comfort her teh way a mother can..

im sure everything will go fine. positive thinking, if you are relaxed and ok with it all she will be aswell

Hi there

Has your DD had her operation yet?
My daughter had bilateral trigger thumbs. Her left was worse than her right. I first noticed it when she was nearly 2.5 when she was sitting on my lap one day and I was holding her hands - it freaked me right out. Why weren't her thumbs able to flex?? I had my son not long after and when I saw the paed at his 6 week appointment I asked about Jemma's thumbs - I was given the name of an orthopaedic surgeon.
I had the appointment on Tuesday 18 August 2008. The night before the appointment I decided to look at old photos to see how long her thumbs may have been like this. I was able to see photos from March 2007 which showed clearly that the left thumb especially was bent. Because I had seen this and told the doctor I was able to book the surgery straight away, otherwise he would have adopted a wait and see approach for 6 months.
Her surgery went ahead on 27 August 2008; both thumbs were done. She was very disoriented after the GA, however a bottle of her favourite milo helped calm her down. She was amazing after that, only minimal amount of pain relief. Her surgery took place at about 8:30am, by 12 noon when we collected her sister from kindy she wanted to climb on the playground at school!! Her recovery was very quick, however whilst her left thumb which had been very bent showed immediate improvement, the right one remains at a similar bent. I have seen the ortopaedic surgeon about 8 weeks or so after surgery, he said to wait and see. it has now been nearly 11 months and I want to see him again, she is right handed and I am noticing there are some things she cannot do with that thumb. I was doing some research which led me to your post!!

So good luck if she has not had the surgery, make sure you bring something familiar to the hospital like a favourite toy or drink and lots of cuddles and reassurance.
If she has had the surgery, can you please post to let us know how it went??

Monique

hi monique, thanks heaps for your story. yep, DD had her op on friday so 3 days ago. it wasnt as bad as i thought it was going to be. i was able to go in while they put the mask on her (that was the worst bit and having to walk away). it only took about an hour and then they called and asked us to go to the recovery room because she had woken up quite distressed. she kept ripping at her bandage and just crying. she settled within 40mins and was fine after that. she had a bit of panadol, something stronger with codene in it and then some nurofen at home and she was fine with out pain relief from the second day.

it is on her left hand which is her writing hand so she is having trouble doing things like eating, toileting, drawing etc but she is coping with it well. they bandaged her whole hand up which i wasnt expecting. we have to go back in 10 days to get the dressing off and to inspect it. i hope it has worked.

do you know if there will be any physio involved? no one seems to be able to tell me. the doctor didnt even come and speak to us after the op and the nurses didnt seem to know anything specific, so we are assuming it all went well.

Hi

We had no physio, don't forget at the age your daughter is and mine was they are always on the go and will use that hand regardless of discomfort. It is when we get older that we tend to guard ourselves.

I found it funny that we were given a bottle of painstop (at our insistence) but nothing to replace the wrapping once it got dirty, which was very quickly!!
I found a good way to keep the area clean is to use that clear sticky plaster. I cannot think of the name. You buy it at a chemist on a roll of about a metre and then just cut some off. It is easy to mold around the thumb etc. Just put a piece of dressing over the stitches and secure with the plastic plaster.

She will probably like having a fuss made for bathtime, having her arm wrapped up in several plastic bags!! I used the baby bath in the big bath for Jemma.

I am just now wondering how to proceed with Jemma. I have not been happy with her right thumb at all (the left one which was so much worse is brilliant) Should I go back to the original orthopaedic surgeon (who doesn't specialise in children by the way) or go elsewhere??

Monique

i know what you mean about it getting dirty! it looks disgusting! LOL i'm not sure getting the clear plastic dressing would work for us because her whole fist is bandaged up, it looks like a little stump on the end of her arm! or do you mean once they take that initial bandage off they put on another one over the thumb only?

i think you should go back to the orthopaedic surgeon who did the first surgery because he will have an idea of what he did, why it hasnt worked properly and if there he should go and re-do it. but then if you dont get sufficient advice or anything from him then i think you should go to a childrens one. you would think it would have worked hey. i will come in and tell you if hannahs is straightened out properly when we get the bandage off next tuesday! :-)

quote "or do you mean once they take that initial bandage off they put on another one over the thumb only?"

With Jemma her bandage got so dirty that we took it all off. We then noticed that the gauze over the actual cut areas were very loose. That's when we replaced those with the plastic see through plasters. We did that several times from the first couple of days after surgery until we took her back for the check up.

I will ring up to make an appointment today for her.


Monique

hannah complained of having a sore thumb 'inside' this morning. she hasnt mentioned it again since then.. they said to bring her in if she is complaining of it getting sore but i dont think she is in agony and it musnt be constant cause she only mentioned it once. did anything similar happen with your DDs.?

Jemma's thumbs were most 'sore' when we were changing the bandages and she could see the stitches or the cuts. Apart from that she was absolutely amazing, I didn't hear much about it from her at all.

got bandage off today and hannah cracked it when she saw the stitches! she said it was hurting but i think she just freaked out by seeing the stitches in her thumb. its still in the bent position but it can be manipulated to straighten. she is still going around doing things one handed cause she has been used to doing it with the bandaged hand. LOL i hope after the stitches fall out her thumb is fully straightened.

how did you go with the appointment?

Haha - the sight of the stitches suddenly brought on pain!!! Just like Jemma.

Thanks for the prompting!!! I have booked an appointment for her with Dr George Carter (Murdoch Orthopaedic Clinic) - Tuesday 11th of August so 3 weeks from today and 51 weeks after I first saw him about Jemma's thumbs.

Monique

great! let me know what he says, i would be interested to know cause hannahs is still in the bent position, though it can be straightened out easily.