A private consultation is an excellent way of ensuring you receive tailored care and treatment for your hand or wrist problem.
When you first meet with your Consultant, they will take your medical history and talk with you about your symptoms. They will ask you questions like:
- What symptoms do you have?
- How long have you had these symptoms for?
- Have they been getting progressively worse (or better) over time?
- If you have pain, is it sharp or dull?
- Is the pain in only one area (localised) or is it spread across your hand and wrist?
- What things are you no longer able to do as a result of your symptoms?
Your Consultant will carry out a clinical examination of your hand, wrist and arm in order to assess strength, mobility and flexibility in any affected joints.
Further tests or investigations are sometimes also needed to help confirm a diagnosis or to accurately assess the extent of any injury or disease. This will often be an X-ray of your hand and wrist to help show the presence of any bony abnormalities. Further diagnostic scans like Ultrasound or MRI may be carried out to help look at tendons, ligaments, muscles and nerves. With comprehensive diagnostic capabilities on-site, we can arrange any tests you require quickly and easily.
Once a diagnosis has been confirmed, your Consultant will discuss suitable treatment options with you. These may include rest, bracing of the hand or wrist, pain relief medication, physiotherapy, steroid injections or, if necessary, an operation.
Depending on the cause of your symptoms, your Consultant may advise an arthroscopy, a type of keyhole surgery. This is carried out as a day case procedure and involves passing a thin, flexible tube with a small camera and light attached through a small cut in your wrist. This transmits a live feed to a screen, giving your Consultant a clear view inside the joint. Arthroscopy can be used to help diagnose a problem as well as to carry out surgical repair.
There are a number of effective non-surgical treatments available for hand and wrist conditions. For some conditions though, some form of surgery will be required to restore pain-free movement. Should you require surgery, your Consultant will explain how it will be done, the benefits you should expect to see from surgery and any potential risks you need to be aware of.
You will always have the information you need to make an informed decision about your treatment. If you have any questions or concerns at any stage, your Consultant will be happy to talk with you about them.