Basal Thumb Surgery

[dbsfgyd1]

Hey all. I've been having some significant discomfort in my thumb joints for some time. Earlier in the year I had a visit with an orthopedic had surgeon that has recommended Basal Thumb surgery. This is the one where a bone is removed and replaced with a tendon harvested from the wrist.

The surgeon assumes me this will not effect my ability to play, as there are very few deficits as a result of the operation.

Has anybody on this board had this surgery, know anybody that had the surgery, and what were the outcomes? Thanks.

 

[arbiterusa]

My hand would have to be unusable for me to even consider surgery on it.

I have not had the operation in question, but I've had others, and I can feel them all full-throttle right now. One thing surgery does not do is fix pain.

Have you tried SynVisc or one of the similar joint lubrication injections?

 

[DrThumpenstein]

Hey all. I've been having some significant discomfort in my thumb joints for some time. Earlier in the year I had a visit with an orthopedic had surgeon that has recommended Basal Thumb surgery. This is the one where a bone is removed and replaced with a tendon harvested from the wrist.

The surgeon assumes me this will not effect my ability to play, as there are very few deficits as a result of the operation.

Has anybody on this board had this surgery, know anybody that had the surgery, and what were the outcomes? Thanks.

It sounds a little scary, but it's actually a fairly straightforward procedure with fairly low risk and high patient satisfaction. (I recently retired from a very active sports medicine practice of more than 30 years.) While there are nonsurgical methods for treating this, such as bracing, activity modification, and injection with inflammatory-type steroids (or biologics), it is caused by osteoarthritis, which is a progressive condition, and sometimes surgery is necessary. I routinely referred these cases to fellowship-trained hand specialist orthopedic or plastic surgeons. If all goes well, I would expect to be a little limited in your playing for a few weeks, but then you should be good to go.


One of my buddies had this condition and after treating him nonsurgically for a few years, it got to a point where he couldn't play golf, so he had that procedure done. This was about 15 years ago and he still smokes it 30 yards past me. Golf places a lot more stress on that joint than playing bass, perhaps other than slap if it's your slap hand, so unless that's your thing, I expect it will do the trick for you. And even if you slap, you should recover adequately for slapping, it just might take a little longer.

Good luck and speedy recovery!

 

[dbsfgyd1]

It sounds a little scary, but it's actually a fairly straightforward procedure with fairly low risk and high patient satisfaction. (I recently retired from a very active sports medicine practice of more than 30 years.) While there are nonsurgical methods for treating this, such as bracing, activity modification, and injection with inflammatory-type steroids (or biologics), it is caused by osteoarthritis, which is a progressive condition, and sometimes surgery is necessary. I routinely referred these cases to fellowship-trained hand specialist orthopedic or plastic surgeons. If all goes well, I would expect to be a little limited in your playing for a few weeks, but then you should be good to go.


One of my buddies had this condition and after treating him nonsurgically for a few years, it got to a point where he couldn't play golf, so he had that procedure done. This was about 15 years ago and he still smokes it 30 yards past me. Golf places a lot more stress on that joint than playing bass, perhaps other than slap if it's your slap hand, so unless that's your thing, I expect it will do the trick for you. And even if you slap, you should recover adequately for slapping, it just might take a little longer.

Good luck and speedy recovery!

Hey Doc, thanks much for the response. Scary?? I watched a video of the procedure and kept my lunch. LOL!!!

I had my first steroid shots about 6 months ago, and have an appointment this Friday for another course of injections. My right thumb is bone on bone at this point, but really is not that uncomfortable, for now. My left thumb still has a bit of a gap, but tendon gets really inflamed from time to time and it hurts like a son of a gun. For a right handed bassist, playing in the first position while not impossible, at times I get that owie…if you get my drift.

I have a gig scheduled on the 17th of December anf I'm hoping to have my left thumb done afterwards. The right one is going to wait but I realize it will need it done eventually.

Anyway, thanks much for your response and assurances. It was greatly appreciated. Take care.

 

[DrThumpenstein]

You bet! Just realized you're from Mascoutah. I used to practice at St E's, back when they sponsored the SLU Sports Medicine fellowship about 10 years ago. Glad you've got access to good care!

You might want to discuss with your surgeon the timing of steroid injection in relation to surgery. If done within 3 months of joint replacement (with hardware), steroid injection increases the risk of infection, and some believe that is likely to be the case with other joint surgeries.