Is there a doctor in the house?

I'm no doc, but my advice is to go see one    Hope you feel better.

Dave

will a pharmacist help?

as long as your kidneys and eyes are in good shape, you can take a maximim dose of 800mg every 8 hours.  watch for fluid retention and blurry vision if you take these high doses for more than a week.  it you develop blurry vision, you are hosed for a week.  no driving until the blurry vision goes away (in another week!). 

Pretty much what others have said: Consistent use of anti-inflammatories, rest, rest and more rest.  Elbow strap or wrist strap if you can't avoid pain with normal use.

Sounds like you most likely do have tendinitis of the extensor tendons in your forearm.  They are the muscles on the back of your forearm that insert on the posterior aspect of your elbow and run down the forearm to insert both at the wrist and on the posterior side of each digit.  There main function is to pull the wrist and fingers back or stabilize the wrist against forward motion or force.  In most activities, these muscles are not as heavily used as the flexors so they are not well developed and more easily subject to injury when they are used acutely against significant force.  If you play tennis, they are usually well developed from using your backhand stroke.  In more daily activity they might be used to simply stabilize your wrist over your keyboard when typing. 

I really inflamed the extensor insertion at my elbow once because I was fishing around an old pier near the San Rafael Bridge.  The guy that took be there had me doing tight loops around the pilings because this was where the stripers tend to hold.  In order to turn a tight semi circle I had to forcefully back peddle on one side and the next day my arm was real sore and bothered me for some time.  But I have even caused a flare up from something as innocuous as continuously googling with a mouse for 8 hours for something I was shopping for.  Holding my wrist back for such a long, continuous time was enough to strain the insertion and for quite awhile it was painful just to hold my coffee cup.

So if tenderness is on the back side of your wrist or elbow and hurts when you type, it makes me think you might have strained your extensors either by repeated raising up your forearm, as in jigging, or perhaps from back peddling quite a bit to maintain your position.

The fact that you had acute, swelling suggests you probably have at least a moderate injury and may have some micro tears in the tendon.  As others mentioned, rest and anti-inflammatory meds are the treatment of choice.  If it involves the elbow you may get some relief from a Velcro elbow strap that constricts the muscle group as it inserts at the elbow. This makes the whole muscle group act as the insertion under the strap and relieves some of the tension of the actual insertion allowing it to heel.  If your wrist is very painful, a soft wrist brace may give some relief.

If rest and OTC anti-inflammatories don't improve the situation, you might ask your doctor if you can try and older anti-inflammatory called Indomethicin.  I use the extended release, 75 mg/day and find that it works better than the OTC meds when I have back problems, planter fasciitis, gout and flare ups of arthritis in my shoulders and hands. (Don’t use it if you have a touchy stomach or have had gastritis or gastric ulcers. It can make some people drowsy.) My doctor, who is a sports medicine doctor uses this as well.

When it heals, probably the best way to avoid a relapse is to make sure you have adequately bulked up the extensor muscle group before giving them an intense workout.

Alan Tani,  Did you work for Longs?  I spent almost 35 years there.

Its going to take some time as the small tears will heal with rest and ice. I have used in the past ice massage. Take the small dixie cups and freeze water in them. After they are frozen tear about an inch or more off the cup to expose the ice. Massage all the areas that are tender and past those an inch or two for 10 -15 minutes. Repeat this twicwe a day or more if you can. Massage will increase the blood flow to the affected areas promoting healing to the tears. I was told of this by a pro runner when I developed shin splints from training too hard too fast. The shin splints were gone in two weeks and never came back. Give your gut a break and dont shovel that crap in your system if you dont have to. Massage works and its natural.

Amputate.


I went to med school in eastern Europe.

Amputate.
I went to med school in eastern Europe.

OMG.. That's hilarious!

Wow... with Alan Tani and Doug Marmite responding to this post, you just got some valuable advice without having to drive to the doctors office and paying a deductible.

Could be ghout? I don't even know how to spell that. 
Happens to folks when their diet is altered with rich foods and double IPa.

i experienced the same when i first started to paddle. I took a class and learned the right way to paddle. It never came back.....and there were other things like proper posture to go along with it.

Great info here guys thanks. I have been icing it every night and it is going away. I also got a prescription for voltaren gel (diclofenac sodium topical gel) It seemed to help take the swelling down. Now that I think about it I don't know if I have the tendinitis from paddling or fishing.