jml Posted July 19, 2015 Report Share Posted July 19, 2015 (edited) Hey guys, Just wondering if anyone else has had a similar issue. I think a sprain a few weeks back (landed heavily on the bars) may have caused a twinge in my wrist. I have no pain while riding, I generally feel the pain more when I'm off the bike and I flex my wrist but the pain is isolated only to the area marked in red. If I flex my wrist into extension (like in the second picture) I get this fizzel/twinge in that spot or when I'm opening a door. Is this tendinitis? My Doctor instantly without even looking at my hand said Carpal Tunnel I've had the pain for about 5 weeks now. I've made some adjustments to the bike to hopefully improvement the ergonomics to put my wrists in a better position to prevent sprain in the future. Edited July 19, 2015 by jml Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan williams Posted July 19, 2015 Report Share Posted July 19, 2015 (edited) Sounds more like you've strained a ligament attached to your thumb. Get a second opinion from a specialist. Your doctor doesn't sound particularly competent. Carpel tunnel is a repetitive use injury caused by inflammation. An impact overstress is different. Hands and wrists are not very vascular areas and as such tend to take quite some time to heal. A fizzle/twinge could be the breaking of adhesions. Read up on sports injuries. There are some excellent books on the subject of sports orthopedics but hands are a pretty specialized field. So yeah see a hand specialist. Look here http://handtoelbow.com/information-sheets/ Edited July 19, 2015 by dan williams Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jml Posted July 20, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 20, 2015 Thanks for the reply Dan, I'll be visiting my GP for a follow up. I've been to the physio twice already and I feel I'm only poorer for the experience. Just as a follow up I've also noticed a tingling in the only callus on my hand which lines along the same path as the pain down at my wrist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan williams Posted July 20, 2015 Report Share Posted July 20, 2015 If you are not wearing gloves or they have no padding and you tend to ride heavy on your palms you can damage nerves in your hand which will cause tingling and numbness especially in the palm and last two fingers. I forget what the nerve is called but I've done this on the mountain bike when I had the wrong gloves. Insist your GP refer you to a specialist. PT and other treatments (surgery) only work with the correct diagnosis and more damage can be done by getting it wrong. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazybond700 Posted July 27, 2015 Report Share Posted July 27, 2015 Deffinatly would have an expert looking at it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glowa Posted July 27, 2015 Report Share Posted July 27, 2015 The location you have marked in the first post is definitely a nerve location, the same nerve that gets irritated when you have a carpal tunnel syndrome. I have a confirmed carpal tunnel syndrome in both of my hands, sickness that definitely was caused by me riding trials bike It was so bad that I had to stop riding trials bike for several weeks. I think the cause is that in regular trials position - standing, I put more weight on my hands which leads to pressure on the palm of hand where the nerve is located, several hours a day for several weeks got my nerve irritated - also the hand is not always straight in the wrist, it is often bend. Try to get your handlebar positioned so that you put less weight on your hands, think about your technique and work with your legs to take weight away from your hands, use padded gloves and check your levers position if they are not set up too high forcing your wrist into unnaturally bend position, hope that helps Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jml Posted July 28, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 28, 2015 (edited) The location you have marked in the first post is definitely a nerve location, the same nerve that gets irritated when you have a carpal tunnel syndrome. I have a confirmed carpal tunnel syndrome in both of my hands, sickness that definitely was caused by me riding trials bike It was so bad that I had to stop riding trials bike for several weeks. I think the cause is that in regular trials position - standing, I put more weight on my hands which leads to pressure on the palm of hand where the nerve is located, several hours a day for several weeks got my nerve irritated - also the hand is not always straight in the wrist, it is often bend. Try to get your handlebar positioned so that you put less weight on your hands, think about your technique and work with your legs to take weight away from your hands, use padded gloves and check your levers position if they are not set up too high forcing your wrist into unnaturally bend position, hope that helps Thanks for the replies! I definitely think it has something to do with excessive pressure on the palm of my left hand. I've adjusted the bars, dropped the levers down a bit more to straighten my wrists out and have been focusing on trying to keep all of my weight on my legs and not my wrists. It's possible that when my legs/core muscles are tired my wrists/hands/palms are taking the brunt. I've also bought a new set of grips and gloves as after a year of riding mine have had it and are worn out and really thin. I've also been focusing on losing a bit of weight and getting my core muscles stronger in order to improve my riding form. I've been to a GP and Physio and both believe it's not CTS but will do the related electronic testing if it persists for >1 month from the current day. I'm going to give all that a try and then report back a little later on how it's going. I also do a lot of writing and working on my laptop so it's possible it's a problem from another source and riding the bike is just exacerbating the issue. So I'm going to do a whole bunch of changes and just hope something works Thanks again. Edited July 28, 2015 by jml Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glowa Posted July 29, 2015 Report Share Posted July 29, 2015 Thanks for the replies! I definitely think it has something to do with excessive pressure on the palm of my left hand. I've adjusted the bars, dropped the levers down a bit more to straighten my wrists out and have been focusing on trying to keep all of my weight on my legs and not my wrists. It's possible that when my legs/core muscles are tired my wrists/hands/palms are taking the brunt. I've also bought a new set of grips and gloves as after a year of riding mine have had it and are worn out and really thin. I've also been focusing on losing a bit of weight and getting my core muscles stronger in order to improve my riding form. I've been to a GP and Physio and both believe it's not CTS but will do the related electronic testing if it persists for >1 month from the current day. I'm going to give all that a try and then report back a little later on how it's going. I also do a lot of writing and working on my laptop so it's possible it's a problem from another source and riding the bike is just exacerbating the issue. So I'm going to do a whole bunch of changes and just hope something works Thanks again. I wasn't fully accurate in my response, I wrote that I have a carpal tunnel syndrome confirmed, but in fact I think (my personal opinion) that trials riding are causing symptoms IDENTICAL to carpal tunnel syndrome - which is the hand nerve irritation without actually being caused by a tight wrist tunnel. I had the EMG (this electrical stuff you mentioned) done which confirmed that nerve is irritated. I think the nerve irritation is caused by severe pressure from the handlebar in an improper hand position, a pressure that in my case continues for several weeks a couple hours a day when I am riding trials. In my case the symptoms were very severe, in the same strength in both hands, I woke up in the morning with both hands completely dead from elbow to the end of fingertips, I got anti inflammation drugs and stopped riding for about 10 days, afterwards I rode enduro bike only, which in my opinion puts less pressure on the wrists due to rider position. Some of the symptoms returned a little bit (I would say 2% of what was there before) and they are not getting any worse than that, I can live with that, also I am trying to slowly go back to riding trials bike now. I use specialized stretches to my arms after reach ride, also almost everyday I go to chiropractor for a massage and I hope somehow I will not need a surgery, because I want to continue riding bike like I used to Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jml Posted July 29, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 29, 2015 In my case the symptoms were very severe, in the same strength in both hands, I woke up in the morning with both hands completely dead from elbow to the end of fingertips, I got anti inflammation drugs and stopped riding for about 10 days, afterwards I rode enduro bike only, which in my opinion puts less pressure on the wrists due to rider position. Some of the symptoms returned a little bit (I would say 2% of what was there before) and they are not getting any worse than that, I can live with that, also I am trying to slowly go back to riding trials bike now. I use specialized stretches to my arms after reach ride, also almost everyday I go to chiropractor for a massage and I hope somehow I will not need a surgery, because I want to continue riding bike like I used to Hey Glowa, Damn that really sucks, mine isn't that bad I just get a slight nagging pain in my palm with my hand in certain positions of flexion generally I have no pain while riding. When you're riding are you doing a lot of drop offs and jumping over stuff? Have you tried to just ride around on the flat to determine if it's a problem with your standing posture or if it's caused by the large stuff (drop offs, logs etc)? Are you a heavy/light rider? I'm currently overweight which I don't believe is helping. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan williams Posted July 31, 2015 Report Share Posted July 31, 2015 Maybe time is the answer. I hope you can get it sorted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan williams Posted July 31, 2015 Report Share Posted July 31, 2015 Just out of curiosity how do you have your bars positioned and what bend are they. I ask because it's not uncommon for new trials riders to have their bars too far back which causes a host of issues including putting too much weight on their hands. The wrong bars can also be problematic if the sweep and lift of the bars is incorrect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glowa Posted August 9, 2015 Report Share Posted August 9, 2015 (edited) Hey Glowa, Damn that really sucks, mine isn't that bad I just get a slight nagging pain in my palm with my hand in certain positions of flexion generally I have no pain while riding. When you're riding are you doing a lot of drop offs and jumping over stuff? Have you tried to just ride around on the flat to determine if it's a problem with your standing posture or if it's caused by the large stuff (drop offs, logs etc)? Are you a heavy/light rider? I'm currently overweight which I don't believe is helping. I have no pain, not during riding not afterwards, I only get numb hands mostly in the mornings. I use several trial techniques to practice for enduro, I mostly train balance and low speed control, I do not jump at all and I do not do dropoffs - my training mostly consists of a very steep ascents from almost a standstill (and descends the same way but riding down, not dropping off) and very little space turns (without hopping at all). When riding around I feel there is no big pressure on my hands and I do not feel like I am putting much weight on my hands either. I would say that the most weight is on my hands when I am riding steep descends even though I try to offset this with my legs. I have an OEM Beta bar, not sure what exactly the sweep is but the shape seems to be very similar to trials renthal bar, also the forward/front position was set up for my with a help of a professional trials rider and the position is pretty comfortable so I do not believe there could be a problem here I forgot to add that I am quite fit, 85kgs at 182cm of height Edited August 9, 2015 by glowa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glowa Posted August 12, 2015 Report Share Posted August 12, 2015 I started wondering is putting the bar more forward going to put more weight on hands? or the opposite? I think the bars will be more to the back, the less weight there will be on hands, am I right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jml Posted November 4, 2015 Author Report Share Posted November 4, 2015 (edited) Just out of curiosity how do you have your bars positioned and what bend are they. I ask because it's not uncommon for new trials riders to have their bars too far back which causes a host of issues including putting too much weight on their hands. The wrong bars can also be problematic if the sweep and lift of the bars is incorrect. Hey Dan, I've got the normal bars which came on the 2010 Beta, I run the hand grips in line with the front forks (I'm about 5"10') so that the fork tube runs directly down the center of the grip. Could this be a little too far forward? Just be careful with this picture as there is a little bit of a parallax error with how I line them up by eye. Edit: Now that I think about it, I did move them forward about 3 months ago which could coincide with the pain and they do look a little too far forward! Edited November 4, 2015 by jml Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jml Posted November 4, 2015 Author Report Share Posted November 4, 2015 (edited) Okay it might not look like much but I just moved the bars back and I don't know if it's anecdotal but the weight on my left hand reduced by a lot! It just feels like I'm using my legs much more to support my weight. The bars were rolled back by a few mm in the camps maybe 3-5mm but this translates to a massive movement in the bar ends. I'll ride with this for a while and see how it feels! My alignment goal is to keep the inner circular part of the grip in line with the fork legs. Thanks all for the input. Edited November 4, 2015 by jml Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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