Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Carpal Tunnel

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

Carpal tunnel sydrome, or an irritation of the median nerve, is often thought of as a more "modern" ailment, exacerbated by 8-hour days at a computer and video game hobbies. Dr. Sydnee talks about the history of the first diagnosis of this syndrome, and Justin talks about his recent surgery experience, as well as the causes and possible prevention.Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers https://taxpayers.bandcamp.com/Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota: https://www.ilcm.org/donate/

Sawbones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. Hello everybody and welcome to Sawbones, a marital tour of Miss Guide. Medicine. I'm your co-host, Justin McElroy. And I'm Sidney McElroy. You know why you didn't

just ask me to hand it to you? Uh, what, do you want to share with everybody? Why I didn't just ask you to hand it to me? Yes, Sydney. It was because, uh, last Wednesday, I had, uh, carpal tunnel and cubital tunnel release on my left arm. That's right, Justin. And that's what we're going to talk about this week. Yes. Yes, because I thought we would fully, like, you could share your experience if you were willing. Yes. Oh, well. You know what?

Now would be a wild time for me to clam up on you, Sid. I'm not going to do that because we got the recording going on one all. Yeah. I'm really enjoying. You really enjoying trying to watch me get settled in my chair? All my, I'll tell you what, the hardest, the real toll has been in my fidgeting. It's so much harder to fidget now. I really have to work for every fidget.

And you'd think a lesser man would just stop fidgeting. but no. I was enjoying, we just changed your dressings, and my fingers still smell like Xeroform, which is a petroleum jelly, like, implanted dressing. It's like a yellow gooey. Mary Caffeine Gallagher. I love the smell of Xeroform.

It's a really wonderful dressing if you're interested in good dressings for wounds. You know what? I like ranch. No. No. I won't. I won't allow it. Justin, do you want me to talk a little bit

about the history of Carpal Tunnel, and then you can fill everybody in on what your experience was like for those. I would prefer you do that. And I can talk about my personal journey. But I would love to know about the history that I have now a, but a mere thread in the grand tapestry of. I think when we say carpal tunnel syndrome, first of all, it feels like a modern invention.

Doesn't it? It feels like one of those things that you started hearing about in the 80s, like IBS. Yes. This is how all of a sudden it became like a punchline on SNL to mention IBM. or CTS, I guess. Yes. But, I mean, it's certainly, it is likely that we have had carpal tunnel as long as we have had, you know, wrists and median nerves. It seems, though, that also the dialogue about it was very much tied to like, well, we're chained to our desks.

So many hours a day, you know, us computer jockeys are all coming down with carpal tunnel syndrome. It really has become connected, I think, to using computers a lot. Yeah. Which, I mean, okay, at the, let's see. start with what is carpal tunnel syndrome. Yes. I was going to start with history, but I think we should start with what is carpal tunnel syndrome. Justin, would you like to describe your clinical, like your symptoms of carpal tunnel?

Yeah, so I've had with use when I use my hands for something like that involves gripping or holding, things like using a tool or a game controller or a bike is another good example. my hands would start to go numb and tingle and sometimes hurt. And specifically what part of your hand? This is important. What do you mean? Which part, like which fingers? The thumb and four fingers.

Thumb index and pointer guy. Yeah. The thumb and middle. First three fingers. If you start with the thumb, fingers one, two, three. Fingers and middle. Yes. I have, this is all kind of muddy for me because I also have problems with the other two.

So people try to make these distinctions for me and they're not so impressive to me. because they're all kind of bad. So carpal tunnel syndrome specifically is related to what's called the median nerve. So there are different nerves that provide innervation, sensory, like the feeling, to different parts of your hand. And so the reason that we ask very specifically what fingers are numb or tingly or weak, where are you having the symptoms, is because some of our fingers are innervated by the median nerve, some by the ulnar nerve, and then the other part of our hand by the radial nerve. So depending on what isn't working, it tells us what nerve is the problem, right? And that's true for all over the body.

That's, you know, we will narrow it down to where exactly. That helps us tell even to like what part of the spine might there be compression or what part of the brain might a stroke have occurred in. It depends on what nerves are affected. So the median nerve, if you flip your hand over, you're looking at your palm, the median nerve runs down the middle of your wrists there. Mm-hmm. Okay? And it mainly, I mean, it does a lot of stuff, but it's going to intervene when we're talking about feeling just what you said, those first three fingers starting at the thumb, the thumb, your pointer, and your middle finger, okay? Mainly on the palm side of your hand.

Yeah. There. Okay. If that nerve is being irritated or compressed, and that can happen because there's a lot of stuff that runs through your wrist there. The wrist in hand, there's a bunch of stuff in there. You're telling me. And it's a small space. So you've got tendons and you've got nerves.

and you've got blood vessels, if something is inflamed inside your wrist, it puts pressure on the other structures and can irritate them. And they all have to pass. The reason we call it a tunnel is because they all have to pass under the transverse carpal ligament or flexor retinaculum. There's lots of names. But the point is, there's a band of tissue that goes across your wrist and everything's passing underneath it. And if something's swollen, it's pressing on everything, and then you get the symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome. So basically, ideas like this. You hold your hand weird for a long period of time, it'll fall asleep.

This is sort of like an interior same idea. Something is pinching the nerve and making it fall asleep. But you can't get in there and like it feels like you should be able to move it. If you've ever had that sensation, then you know what the sensation's like, except it's not like that. It's not caused by moving it or adjusting it. It just kind of persists. Yes. So that leads to the symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome.

On the surface, it can sound pretty benign if I say like... Okay, Sidney, I'm sorry. You know, maybe it's not the biggest deal in the world. You know, I get it. To hear me tell it, it probably doesn't sound like something that requires surgical intervention. I'm sorry. But, you know, try living with living with, living with not dying of carpal tunnel syndrome for five to six years as I have, Sydney.

And then tell me about being benign. Well, you're going to feel really silly because I was about to say it can seem benign, but it can actually lead to a decent amount of dysfunction if you do not have it. A decent amount of dysfunction. Yes. So initially symptoms can just be some. Who cried wolf? It doesn't seem like it.

Some intermittent numbness or tingling pins and needle sensation like it's fallen asleep in those fingers in that part of your hand. But it can lead to weakness, poor grip, dropping things. I mean, it can lead to the inability to use your hands. You can even start to see the muscles in your palm on that side start to deteriorate.

They'll start to get smaller and weaker because the nerve isn't, you know, sending impulses to it anymore because it is so compressed. So it is a big deal. There are also things that became like harder to do,

like just things that I couldn't physically do, like hold a game controller for more than 10 to 15 minutes, which is, you know, healthy, according to some people, but, you know, I got a game. You know me. You got a game. You know me. We probably have had, if you look at to like references to like writers cramp going back to, you know, people who would have been copying papyrus. Oh, sure. You know. Elimations back then. That probably took a lot of, that's a lot of finesse work. Or if you think of like

monastic work, if you're copying religious texts over and over and over again, those are probably, And you see discussion of those early physicians of like a severe writer's cramp or the inability to continue writing. Those could have been early descriptions of carpal tunnel syndrome. But what you really need are sort of those repetitive motion type of things to lead to more and more reports of it. Maybe I bet pain and hieroglyphous for crying out loud. Probably. That's fine. Yeah, exactly.

And that's why I think. Hieroglyphistice cramp they call it. Well, I mean, maybe because if you look at like the rise of the industrial revolution, that's when you really start to see more and more people kind of complaining about something that was probably carpal tunnel syndrome. And they're called things like factory hand or tailor's cramp or telegraphers cramp or even just occupational neurosis. I don't know. You work a lot and now there's something wrong with your hand. Maybe someday it'll be like solar miners cramp. You know what I mean?

Laser, laser miner cramps. You know, you never know. Laser miner? Like if you're a laser. Like if you're a laser. Like you'll mine for lasers? Sydney, obviously, will use the lasers to mine the sun. That's how solar miners earn their space books.

It's like you haven't read my books. You haven't read Soul Chronicles 3 through 7. You swore. You swore to me. You've read them all. Clearly not. Yeah. Well, I just didn't know if you were ready to share them with the public.

No. And I've had a day. dictate them since I've had my surgery. You're right-handed. What? You're right-handed. I know, honey, but you know how I type. It's a full-body thing.

Oh, well, I guess that you would be typing. So the first description of what we kind of understand is carpal tunnel syndrome specifically. So not just like I've been using my hand a lot, it hurts. Because that could be a lot of things, not necessarily carpal tunnel. Probably comes from Paget, where we see a description of, from 1854 and a hospital in London of a man who had a fracture of his radius and a nerve, and then the median nerve was compressed. So the nerve we're talking about got pressed on by this broken bone.

And in specifically this case, there was this non-healing of that side of the hand. There was like an ulcer. There was loss of feeling. There was loss of function. And it was all related to this compression on the median nerve. and it was only by relieving the pressure on the nerve that eventually the hand was able to function and heal again. And so it was sort of connecting

when something's going on with this part of the hand, this is the nerve responsible for. I mean, that's what we have to understand, right? Like a lot of early anatomy was what does what. And the hand is counterintuitive in a lot of ways. It's wild once you start figuring out what all is connected to what. Like you would think that it would be pretty, I don't know, it would take a lot of trial and error out of it.

I will say neurology, and I am not a neurologist. I'm a family physician. But I think neurology is fascinating. It's a lot of puzzle solving. You would probably enjoy it, honestly, of all the medical disciplines. Because I remember a lot of... You think, you know me fairly well. You think I got the makings of a neurologist?

Yes. Yeah, but like it's me, though. Yeah, no, you could, yeah. Yes. That's very flattering thing. Oh, it's true. I think you would enjoy neurology because there's a lot of puzzles to it. Like, if this is where the symptoms are, where is the lesion?

And so you have to think about like, well, this travels through this. And this is affected, but this isn't affected. So it must be further down the line or further up the line. You know what I mean? Does that make sense? Maybe I should pick it up. Neurology. Well, I mean, you got to go to medical school.

These days? No, you got to go to medical school. You know, you see the sleuths on TV. They don't all go to detectives school. No, we don't... We don't... Listen, contrary to what RFK Jr. might tell you, we really don't go in for amateur doctors much. Yeah.

We really prefer you have some formal medical training. But when the cops say that in cop shows to the fun detectives, like, leave this to the cops. Everybody's like, no, you're not going to leave to the cops. You're going to let Super Granny do it or whatever. Whatever the show is you're watching, right? But you don't feel that way when people do that with doctor stuff. It's like, you're not like, leave this to the doctors. And you'd be like, yeah, you should actually leave this to the doctors.

We agree. No, I don't think you should dabble in neurology. Yeah. I just think if you were to pursue medicine, neurology would be a good fit for you. You would like solving the puzzles. Okay. Yes. But, you know, maybe I'll just dabble.

You can just read about it. Just don't ever try to treat any patients. How about that? Got it. How about that? Okay. So we kind of have this early description of carpal tunnel. So to begin to understand, the median nerve does this.

So if you see dysfunction here, that must be. the median nerve at this point in the hand. And the carpal tunnel is not actually the nerve itself. It is a pathway. Yeah, it looks like a tunnel. Like if you looked at a picture of the anatomy, like if you imagine your wrist and cross-section, all of those little things that go into your hand have to pass under a band of tissue. And that's the carpal tunnel that we have created a tunnel.

It is a carpal is referencing the hand, like the bones. They're carpal bones, metacarpals, and their bone, carpal is a reference to the hand. And so there is a tunnel from the arm into the hand. It passes under a band of tissue. And when something is swollen in that tunnel or when that band of tissue is too tight, you get problems. Makes sense? That makes sense. So that's the tunnel we're talking about.

Everyone has a carpal tunnel. Yeah, it sounds like me to develop. No, you have a carpal tunnel. Whether or not you have a syndrome related to your carpal tunnel, you do. I do not. Yes. I used to. No, I only have to.

Now you only have to. So we see a lot of attention paid to it in the 40s with Dr. George Phelan, who is a hand surgeon who made, really, our understanding today of Carpal Tunnel came from his very, I love the title of this paper, The Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, 17 years experience in diagnosis and treatment of 654 hands. That maybe our podcast book would have been different if we had titled it like 15 years experience with 730 podcast episode. I know we should have, right? It is very impressive. He published this and everybody was like, well, there it is. This guy knows more about carpal tunnel syndrome than anybody else. He coined the term carpal tunnel syndrome.

That's where we get it. One of the Fast and Furious movies were titled that way. Like, this should just be called 37 explosions, many of which include planes. Like, sick. I'll go. You know? Or cars. Cars.

Cars. Cars. Three. 17 minutes of Venn diesel. That is less, 17 minutes of Vend Diesel is a less impressive title for a movie. One Paul Walker dream sequence. Got to. Got to.

We actually get from Dr. Phelan's maneuver or Phelan's sign, which is a test that you probably had done on you while diagnosing your carpal tunnel syndrome. I know you cannot do this right now because you're recovering from surgery. And I don't know if you can describe what. what I'm doing. I have taken my hands and I've put the backs of my hands together, like the opposite of praying.

Like if you put your hand in a praying position. Like if you're praying back. Upside down. And completely flexed them. So they're all the way flexed together. I can't do that right now. I know, you can't do that right now. And I'm pressing the backs of my hands together.

They're pointing down. They're completely flexed at the wrist. And I'm going to hold them like this and see if my fingers, the thumb and first two fingers, go numb or get tingly. Okay. that's phelan sign.

Okay. This could indicate carpal tunnel syndrome. Okay. Did you have this test done? Yes, absolutely. I've had, I've had this has been ongoing for many, many years. So yes, I've had a lot of different ones. Yeah.

And so there's, you can do the opposite. You can do the reverse phelan, which is the prane. Because if you imagine your hands in like a traditional, a stereotypical prane position. And then there's also tenel sign can be used, which tenel sign technically can be used on any nerve, but it's basically where you tap on the nerve in question, repeatedly and see if you can percuss it and see if you can get the symptoms, replicate the symptoms.

So this would just be tap on the median nerve. These are just, again, these are tests that can be used to diagnose carpal tunnel syndrome, and this is one of the guys they were named for. So he published this series of case reports, described the symptom, describe the syndrome, and then also recommended some treatments, things like steroid injections, if you actually take some steroids and inject them directly into that tunnel. So into the wrist, it should give you some relief. But how long does that relief last, Justin?

It varies, actually. It's longer at the beginning, you know, usually a few months. But by the last time I got the treatment, it was maybe, you know, like a month, a few weeks before kind of wore off. Exactly, exactly. And he warned of that, even back then, and said, if you're going to fix it, you probably need to cut the ligament. Yep. Or do a release, which is what you had done. So we have this sort of description.

We know what it is. But it was still, I wouldn't say a, I don't want to say it's an uncommon condition, but it wasn't the most common thing you were seeing, right? That's why it was so important that he published the 17 years of experience. And over that 17 years, I will say, 654 is an impressive collection of patients. But that was over 17 years. So that's not a lot of people per year getting carpal tunnel syndrome necessarily. So when did it become the very common?

thing we know now. I don't know. Well, I'm going to tell you. Oh, good. What a relief. First, we're going to go to the billing department. Let's go. When did it blow up, Sydney?

When did carpal tunnel begin to swell to a point where we all got tingly for it? So we really start in the 80s, and that is when we start to see a focus on occupational safety standards. You see more strikes from workers who are demanding safety standards. safer conditions and who are also looking for like workers' compensation to recognize injuries that people are sustaining while they are working. A lot of repetitive stress injuries becoming a buzzword at this time. Exactly, exactly. And this is, this was building on obviously decades of labor strikes to say, hey, you know,

just telling me, look, you're going to do this job and you might get injured on this job, but that's not our problem. You knew the job was dangerous when you took it. That's not good enough, right? Right. Like there should be compensation if in doing. your job, you were then, especially if it keeps you from working or enjoying your life moving forward.

So you see in the 80s specifically focused on the idea of carpal tunnel syndrome. And this really, as we move into like the late 80s and into the 90s, when computers become a thing, then you definitely, more and more people are tying their work. They would call it things like techie tendinitis or mouse shoulder injuries related to to sitting at... Dweeb's elbow. And the idea of occupational carpal tunnel syndrome really became, you know, part of the public conception. And especially after they found that there were two plants where they tried to hide records of occupational carpal tunnel syndrome complaints.

They'd kept two books, basically. And so you see this sort of like, I mean, probably I would imagine I was not aware enough at this. time in history to have noticed, but probably a lot of commercials saying, have you been experiencing these symptoms? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you do a job where you sit at a computer for a long time? During Mori-Povitch. Yeah.

Exactly. And so there were a lot more workers' comp claims connected to carpal syndrome. That's when we really see it entering, like, the really common public conception of what is carpal tunnel syndrome? Everybody ties it to computers, and they tie it to something that happens at work. And that's where you start to see like really strong like standards for if we're going to say somebody has carpal tunnel syndrome and blame it on their job. How are we going to do that? And in order to do that, one, you had to have a nerve conduction study to prove you had it.

I thought maybe you could talk about firsthand. What is a nerve conduction study, Justin? Yeah. So it's a study. It's kind of weird. And the mechanics of it are wild. But basically they are putting a bunch of different sensors like into your sense. skin and then sending electrical impulses through them and measuring basically the resistance

on the line of those nerve those impulses basically like the velocity yeah like the way well velocity would be the inverse of the resistance so sure yes yes right how easily those signals can can travel along the line and comparing them to what we understand to be the the standard like a common and it's not really there are there are some tests that like you where you, it requires your input as a, like, this is not one of those. Like, no one is asking you how things are going. There's like, they're testing it, which is while the computer can test your, how conductive your nerves are, but it makes sense. But yeah, it doesn't require you to feel anything. It's just the computer testing you. Yep. So you had a nerve conduction study done. And those are required if we're going to claim an occupational carpal tunnel syndrome.

And certainly, if you're going to go so far as a surgery, I think most surgeons would prefer, let's have a, a test done that actually shows these symptoms are related to median nerve compression. Now, part of this is, you know, from an occupational standard is to prove that you have the injury. But the other part is kind of what you've already alluded to, Justin, you don't just have symptoms in three fingers. You had some symptoms in your fourth and pinky, too. Yes. Those would not classically be related to the median nerve. Right.

Right? Yes. And so in those cases, it is really important to do a nerve conduction. study so that we can see where exactly is the problem coming from? Because obviously those nerves travel all the way up the arm and through specifically through a big bunch in your armpit area, the brachial plexus, and there are all kinds of opportunities for nerves to be compressed in there, too. And if the problem is actually coming from up there and not down on your wrist, then cutting on your wrist is not going to do any good. So there's a really practical reason to do this. Now, in order

to claim an occupational injury, of course, they set up standards, and this is different. state by state where you had to have evidence on a nerve conduction study of carpal tunnel syndrome. You had to have a job that could theoretically cause carpal tunnel syndrome. And you have to have a doctor that said, yes, I link that job to that condition that I have diagnosed. And it's different state by state. And there is a lot. I will say there is a lot of controversy in this area as to what exact jobs put you at highest risk, what repetitive motions are actually the most dangerous.

You know what I mean? There's a lot of controversy as to, and I asked, it's interesting because I asked your surgeon, of all the activities you do, because you do spend a lot of time at the computer, and you have for a long time. You know, you were in journalism before your current career. That's right.

So, I mean, you've spent a lot of time typing. You play video games. Yep. You are a woodworker. Correct. And more recently, you've gotten into some stuff like soldering and other kind of electronics yeah electronics so i was asking him of all this stuff you know do you think it's just cumulative and he said i mean probably but the video games were the number

one thing he pointed to is what he thought was responsible yeah more than likely i have not been good about um there people who uh have played big against for a long time or do so professionally uh or regularly really should be taking care to exercise and take breaks and this is stuff that has not been that it's only really been talked about, I would say since people started doing like e-sports and stuff. But yeah, I haven't been smart about doing the stretches and taking breaks like you should if you're playing video games very low. And there obviously are a lot of depending on what your profession is. There are a lot of precautions you can take in order to reduce the likelihood of having some sort of repetitive movement injury.

The idea being that doing the exact same thing with a joint, with a tendon, with of, you know, your hand, your foot, whatever, over and over and over again, it is, I mean, I think it makes sense. It's intuitive that that could cause an injury. And certainly there are tons of, like, keyboards and mice. Is it still mice if it's the computer mouse? Meases. Is the plural of a computer mouse still mice?

Yeah. That feels weird. Yeah, no. But there are a lot of those things that have been made specifically to keep your wrist in what we call the neutral position, which is just hold your arm straight out in front of you. Right. And that is how you reduce strain is by not flexing the wrist constantly over and over and over again. I also have a bad habit of sleeping with that nerve compressed, sort of with my wrists bent underneath me. And that's something that a couple of years back I started sleeping in braces to try

to rectify that. That is, in addition to, like I said, breaks and then certain things, braces at night can help reduce that. Cold working environments are supposed to make it worse. A warm working environment is supposed to be better. Your posture in general, so it's not just your wrists, it's your whole body posture can affect the likelihood. And then there's also just, there's genetics. I mean, that was what your surgeon said to me several times, is genetics probably plays a bigger role in it than any. of these things you do with your life. Obviously, any sort of fracture or dislocation there ever could increase the likelihood. If you have things like diabetes, if you have rheumatoid arthritis,

fluid changes like pregnancy, so shifts in where your fluid distribution is in your body. So for instance, I had carpal tonal syndrome during pregnancy. Just because things that were shifting around. It went away after I was no longer pregnant. Now, your surgeon did inform me that it was much more likely I was going to get it again. Great. So, thanks. But again, like work duty specifically, we're still kind of not sure exactly which ones put you at the biggest risk. It's got to be tough to test that over time.

Like, it's such a long period after, yeah. And it's hard to prove that it was that, especially if you do other, like, I garden your work. There's so many other, right. And I'm a writer, too. So, like, I spend a lot of time typing outside of the notes I do it, work, so which one, what pushed me over the edge, right? Just life. Yeah.

The surgery, very simply, is to transect or cut that band. It seems weird. Seems like you need it, right? It kind of reminds me the tonsils thing. What happens is a scar form, scar tissue forms, but the result of that is that it lengthens that band of tissue and alleviates the pressure. It makes the tunnel bigger. So that's the surgery that you had done.

And then just on a side note, you also had. A cubital tunnel syndrome. Justin, what was... Yes, what was that? That's a similar idea, but it's at the elbow. And that one, as I understand it, there's just like a different channel sort of at the elbow that kind of move the nerve, too.

They kind of scoge it over. Well, same thing. There's the cubital tunnel retinaculum band of tissue that straddles, there's a gap there in your elbow. You can feel it. It's on the inside what we call the medial side on the back of your elbow. You can feel a little notch there.

and the ulnar nerve can get compressed there. And you do a similar thing. You cut the band of tissue. And then in your case, your surgeon mentioned specifically they actually kind of moved, like booped the ulnar nerve up on the other side of the elbow so that it wouldn't be stretched so far when you bend your elbow. That causes symptoms, same symptoms, but it just happens in the pinky and fourth digit as opposed to the first three digits. So same idea. Similar surgery, although now you've had both done. So what has this been like?

Because now you're recovering from this procedure. What was the whole experience like for you? Yeah, I mean, it was not. I didn't realize how major of a deal. So this has been an ongoing thing for many years. I should have had the surgery done a while ago, and I just kept being hard to find time where I didn't need both of my hands for weeks on end. but the surgery itself was not too bad.

I mean, I think of me under anesthesia. Coming out of that was a lot. I was kind of groggy. And it took a lot to get me down, apparently. So that was a lot. That was an interesting experience. Yeah. Well, from your perspective, what do you mean it was an experience?

Well, so Justin, if I can share this about you, as a patient, Justin tries to be, I mean, not just like polite and am. but I think entertaining to the medical staff Like you you want them to enjoy you I think It's as a person I mean yeah that's my that's I like to make people happy I could see that need I don't think it's a sin fighting through the vers said that was still in your system I was trying what you're trying what you're saying is What you're saying is it took high levels of

Anesthesia to make me stop being entertaining that like I was It was like an entertaining, like, an wild animal, like an entertaining rhinoceros. And it took them, like, hitting me repeatedly before I would stop entertaining people. Is that what you're saying? Yes. That's how deeply seated the need is. And I had to keep, you kept insisting in recovery that you were going to drive home. And I kept.

That doesn't sound right. Well, and the nursing staff didn't know if you were joking or if I was really going to. Yeah, people get so worked up. Well, I mean, I think, like, she was very, the nurse was really concerned that I was going to have to wrestle you out of the driver's seat and that this would be an ongoing. She asked me multiple times, are you sure you can handle him? And I kept saying, yes, it's just, it. And then she kept asking me, is he always like this? Wow, that's weird.

I don't like that. And I mean, the answer is, well, no, like you'd never had fentanyl and versed in your life. So no, you're not always like that. this, but like the general vibe was you. Like it was you. It was just amplified. It was like me

only more so. The yeah, so that honestly, I was not prepared for the numbness of the hand was crappy and I asked it for like a whole day, but they said, I mean it was you know how that

that Dennis office feeling where you get the numbness than tingling you're like, oh my God, I need this to be over because the numbness is making me feel it was like that but it lasted for a full day so that was crappy but honestly just like i have just felt bad like i just like it happened Wednesday and we're recording this uh monday afternoon and i just today am starting to feel pretty normal and even though like i just been hit with waves of like exhaustion and getting so tired and then uh the just my mood that for the day after was like real real off it was very well it was very really strange. Yeah, I think it's a good reminder, though. I mean, the surgery itself, you're

healing well. You were surprised to find staples, I think, in your elbow. They don't talk you through that, which is like, fine. I don't need to be consulted. But yeah, they were staples. And we are lucky in that I am, I am a physician, and I'm well versed in wound care. And so, you know, I am able to, we were able to change your dressings. I had the appropriate, I just have it here. I had, in one of my many medical bags, many. I had all the appropriate wound care supplies for you. And so, And icing is important, elevation is important, keeping up with the ibuprofen was really important. All these things were important for you. And again, we were lucky in that I kind of knew what to expect wound care-wise.

I will say, I was a little caught off guard by how long the anesthesia has affected you. And I think that's an important thing that we can take away from this. Although I know that logically, and I have seen patients in the hospital who have had the effects of anesthesia not wear off. for days and days. What do you mean by that? Because yesterday we had like a birthday party for Cooper. So like, what do you mean by that? Yeah, but I had to take the lead on a lot of the social interacting for that.

Well, that's not exactly new. Well, that's just sort of standard for us. I think it is a good reminder that when we put people to sleep, we kind of assume once they wake back up, they're done. The anesthesia is done. And sometimes that's true, right? Like, we talked about your colonoscopy. You were on propofal. and pretty much later that day you were back to normal.

Yeah. Like you were yourself. That's fine. Other medications, even if they're technically out of your system, so to speak, I think the sort of, I don't want to say hangover because hangover has such a specific connotation. But you know what I mean. It's still in your body. Yeah. And for up to a week afterwards, it can be affecting your mood, how you're reacting to things, your energy level as you, as you've spoken about, maybe your appetite.

I mean, all of this. Bloading is wild. Like, I just like, you look at my face. Like, I look super puffy. Like, it's, like, I can't feel it. We also, I will say, we thought the surgery was going to be at 10. And I don't even know when you, I mean, we were there all day. We were there.

We were there all day. And so they pumped you full of a lot of saline. No, yeah, I was there for a long time. He was there on saline for a very long time, just fluids, just basic fluids. But I think it's a good reminder. And if you have, if you go through surgery or if a loved one goes through surgery, I think it is important to know the anesthesia will continue to affect you for a while. It is good because then you won't be scared. I think it's always good to share these experiences because when you demystify it and when you recognize like this isn't something I need to freak out about and this is temporary. This will go away because you do seem a lot more like yourself today than even yesterday and the day before each day it's gotten. I feel, yeah, I feel better today. I feel a bit better.

But yeah, it has been weird. It's just been kind of a groginess for like days, which is very, it's kind of disconcerting. You know, if you're somebody who like already has, you know, my mental health is something I manage. So it is hard to like try to distinguish between like, am I depressed? Am I tired? Am I depressed? Because my left arm is not properly functioning right now. That's in my head.

I don't know. Comma, comma, come over everything, I would say. And I, and they tell you, they tell you this. time you go under anesthesia that for 24 hours afterwards don't make any major life decisions. I cannot underline that enough. Justin was trying to work that evening after we left the procedure. I was on our production meeting on Thursday and I did not make a lot of sense. I was informed.

No. He was trying, I mean, he was trying to make business calls and he was causing you a lot of distress too. You kept looking at me. I felt very, very panicked about your inability. to sort of think through things, and it was, I had to keep reminding you, it makes sense you can't think through things right now. Your brain is not going to let you right now. So I think it's good to normalize that and understand it will go away.

You will be fine. Yeah. The pain is better. The numbness is still there. Your surgeon prepared you well for that, that you were going to have some numbness afterwards. Don't think like, oh my gosh, I had this surgery and now it's worse. Yeah.

That's expected. Luckily, Sydney has a lot of experience with helping me to accept the limits of my own intelligence. It's kind of a daily struggle for me. So it is, it is a role in which she is well equipped to handle. I don't know. No.

I don't think that's fair. It's not the limits of your intelligence. Sometimes you're very certain about things. And I am a person who. Hey, that's not my fault. I was raised a white man in the 80s. That's not my fault. It's society's fault.

It's not my fault. I approach everything in life with a very healthy amount of self-doubt. and questioning, and I try to bring that to you. Yeah, I appreciate that. I think we balance each other out. Thanks so much for listening to our podcast. I hope you've, if I'm still a little off today, I do apologize. It's not intentional.

You seem like yourself. Thanks to the taxpayers for youth of their own medicines is the intro and outro our program. And thanks to you for listening. I appreciate it very much. That's going to do it for us for this week. Until next time, my name is Justin McElroy. And I'm Sidney McEloy. As always, don't drill a hole in your head.

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