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I still have this at 6 months postpartum. I take anti inflammatory meds and wear braces when I don't need to type or hold baby...which is almost never!

I had it. Mine got better with a steroid shot and conservative management. I had a huge cyst that they said would need surgery associated with it, but it went away on its own.

It's so common in post partum women that they call it mother's thumb.

oooooh =( i had it, but i haven't had LOs yet. the LO i was nannying for at the time had been sick & needed to be held all. the. time. it was awful. i ended up needing physical therapy, 800 motrin round the clock for over a month to manage inflammation, and special thumb/wrist immobilizing brace. it's the thumb the you really need to immobilize, so make sure the brace you get isn't the regular wrist kind. my physical therapist ended up making me a few smaller kinds once it was getting better. a friend of mine got it working as a hair stylist, i guess it's not uncommon for them. we went on vacation together with our braces & it was kind of funny to us that we both had it at the same time when prior to that, neither of us had heard of it!

i hope yours gets better soon!

The orthopaedic surgeon I work for allows women 1 year of healing before recommending surgery. People can heal quickly, or take the whole year and still not feel better.
(Same timescale for post partum De Quervain's and carpal tunnel in his office)

I have this too..:(.. On both wrists.. It started during my pregnancy and has continued post-partum. I've used the thumb stabilizing wrist braces but I kept taking them off when I would feed babies, wash my hands etc. My physical therapist cousin just taught me exercises to strengthen the area -I hope they'll help!

Physical therapy can really help with De Quervain's. I've seen several patients with it and they usually get better.

@duckduckkristen: I work for a surgeon, so we pretty much saw worst case scenarios. I highly recommend occupational therapy or physical therapy--it helped all of our patients.

@duckduckkristen: I looked some up exercises and they helped. In August, mine finally went away.

I had this and it was horrible! I had pain in my left wrist during pregnancy and after LO was born I didn't feel it anymore so I thought I was home free. Well, I forgot I was taking Tylenol for my c-section pain for 2-3 weeks so once I stopped, my pain was back but in my RIGHT wrist. It switched hands! I think the pain finally went away around 6 month pp. hope it goes away sooner for you.

Reviving this old thread. After a quick google search, I realized that I have De Quervain’s syndrome. Sucks. Only in my right, at least. Anyone else have it? I hope it goes away at some point.

I started getting it in Feb of this year about 6 months after the twins were born. Around May it got really bad. Went to the dr and they gave me a wrist splint and told me to take advil. It was still very painful throughout the summer. It started to get better about 1-2 months ago. I don't have to wear the wrist brace anymore. Every now and then it will hurt when I lift something heavy with my right wrist.

@bluestriped bee: @sunny: I'm just now seeing these responses. OMG. Wrist splints and physical therapy? I just know I won't do physical therapy and probably not the wrist splints. But its getting worse. Luckily only in my right hand. I'm hoping it will go away at some point. Or maybe I can get a cortisone shot after I'm done breast feeding. What a pain this is, right?

@sunny: Did you have to go to actual physical therapy appointments, or did your doctor give you a piece of paper with a description of some exercises to do it?

I had it terribly when LO was about 6-14 mo. It worsened so that by 10 mo I was wearing a thumb spica wrist brace 24/7, started off with it at night. I had a steroid injection at 11 mo and had complete relief but then the pain returned a month later. I had the surgery scheduled but I night weaned LO and my pain miraculously resolved. I didn't fully wean until 18 mo. I'm not sure if there was a true connection but I was so happy it resolved without surgery - I literally cancelled it that week.

@sunny: Ha! I think i would make time if I knew I could get a hand massage out of it! Interesting that you went during maternity leave. I'm just now figuring out that I have this extreme hand pain and I'm already back at work this week! Darn it.

@MenagerieMama: OMG! You had a surgery scheduled? I am so sad that this hand pain is something that is as serious as needing therapy or even surgery. Thats great to hear that your pain lessened when you started weaning your baby. Once you fully weaned, did the pain go away forever? Please give me hope! Although, I do plan to nurse my baby until 12 months, and she's only 3.5 months right now!

@jaguar: Good to know that your pain went away. When did you start getting the cortisone injections? And how often did you get them?

@agold: We started with the splint, then no relief - so had one shot (ouch) and it lasted for a few weeks... and I ended up having one more before deciding to just deal with it. Thankfully it did end!!!

@MenagerieMama: I'm glad I just checked back on this thread. I got a brace but it really interfered with all of my daily activities. So I'm going to take your suggestion and wear it at night only while I sleep. I've adjusted my nursing position and it actually seems to help a little! I'm very surgery adverse as well.

@jaguar: I'm sort of just dealing with it now! Its either getting a little better or I'm just getting used to it. I can't tell yet! I'm so glad that your pain ended.

@Amorini: how are you feeling now? I hope its getting better for you.

@Amorini: The splints totally get in the way. I think I have stopped using my right hand so much that now I'm feeling the pain in my left hand! Ugh. So I wore the splint on my right hand last night while I slept, but the baby actually woke twice crying (this is new.. 4 month regression???). So I took the splint off after the second time she woke because I feel like it gets in the way. When I took it off, I could really tell that my right hand felt better than my left! So I think the splint works and I'll keep trying to wear it when I can.