Carpal Tunnel Surgery and Recovery

Ok, I just had bilateral (both hands) carpal tunnel release on Friday (April 21st). My doctor, right after recovery in post op, wanted me to start making firsts and do so every hour. He mentioned that as long as I could handle the pain there is no damage I could do internally. I thought I would use a forum to share my experience and recovery process for others thinking about surgery. I had pretty severe CTS for almost 3 years before it go so bad, that I decided to do both hands. I was a quite afraid of the surgery, not because of the procedure or possible pain, but hearing variations on recovery time. As a software engineer I don't have 4,5,6 weeks to be away from work, so hearing some of the stories on length of recovery had me concerned. My doctor (maybe a little to aggressive on the recovery) said, some of his patients are back to typing the next day after surgery and most are 7-10 days for full recovery (minus extreme heavy lifting). Alright, so here is my progress so far. Day 1- Surgery in the early morning and woke up with wrist spints on both hands. He put a nerve block in my wrist that lasts for 24-48 hours to help with the pain. I immediately felt better in both hands. The existing tingle and numbness was from the nerve block. Went home and rested all day. I made firsts whenever I was awake. I could not twist the door nob and any thing that required twisting. Day 2-Still rested in bed most of the day. Performed ligth activity with my hands, still making fists, and other light stretching. Day 3-Made it outside to do light activity, such as watering the plants and cleaning the pool with the pole. To this point I kepted the splints on with brief times where I took it off and did some stretching. That evening I took a shower and removed the dressing and washed around the stiches. I was able to do light typing, checking emails, responding and such. Day 4 (today April 24th) I took off the splints in the morning and continued more moving activties. I can twist door nobs and began to lift light weights ( I am an avid weight lifter). I started with only 8 lbs doing curls and flys, but then moved up to 25lbs for hammer curls. Too much weight on the wrist to do regular front curls. I did keep the splints on while lifting. I did drive for the first time (again, with the splints). Went to go get some groceries while my wife was at work and kids at school. I plan on taking Day 5 off, but might go to the gym and see if I can do more excercises. Day 6 I plan on going back to work. I work from home and 100% on the computer. I am obviously typing this right now and not having any issues using the keyboard. I have not read through much of the forum, so not sure if I am ahead of the curve, on par or behind, but this is my journey to full recovery. For those contemplating the surgery, I would recomend moving forward. Even though I have a couple weeks before I am back to what normal might be, just the fact that I can sleep at night, not tossing and turning shaking out my hands every hour, is totally worth it.

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