Help with ammo for tender tendon

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tbige

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I've found to my dismay that the 240-grain PMC ammo I have for my 3" barreled .44 Special revolver makes the tendons in my wrist sore for up to the days after less than 10 shots. As I read PMC's ballistics, that round has a muzzle velocity of only 760 fps.

Hoping to get more shooting time in, I was thinking of trying the Black Hills 210 -grain load at 700 fps.

Anyone think there'd be a significant difference? Any experience with either or both rounds?

Appreciate the help.
 
You could also try the CCI Blazer round - 200gr. JHP. However, I would seriously suggest that you get a doctor to check out your wrist. The load is not particularly heavy in recoil, so if you're having trouble, this could be the warning signs of incipient carpal tunnel syndrome, or arthritis, or something else - worth checking on, IMHO.
 
Ditto Preacherman, also what grips do you have on it and do you use a wrist brace? You might try some rubber, Gasp, grips. even though I really dislike rubber grips it does help. You might try to get a higher grip on the gun to reduce muzzle flip.
 
carpal tunnel alert!

Hi tbige, My wrist hurts after too much computer typing esp. if my desk set up is bad. After that even shooting a .22 makes it hurt. It helps me to take some time off from the computer (sorrry THR) and stop from shooting untill my wrist feels better. One trick that works for me is to use the mouse left handed. When my wrist hurts I can shoot through it but it just prolongs the duration of the pain.
good luck
pete
 
Thanks, guys, excellent advice, which I'll take ASAP.

Meanwhile, I think I'll try a box of the Black Hills -- it's 10 grains more, but some 145 fps slower than the CCI (which sounds like it's worth a try second).

This is really a somewhat odd (to me, that is) phenomenon. While I'm no fan of recoil, this gun (a Rossi for which I have an inordinate fondness) produces no unpleasant recoil whatsoever with the 240 grainers. I'm not aware of annoying blast or of any muzzle flip(though surely there is some). Grips have good adhesion, I hold firmly with a two-hand grasp.

Odd question, but could a less firm grip possibly help?
 
I've put several hundred rounds of that PMC ammo through a Charter Arms and never noticed it to give negative 'days after' punishment. I do wonder if there are any wrist problems apart from shooting.

As for the tighter/looser grip thing... I'd like to say it wouldn't hurt to try, but it probably will. I think just a solid, tight but not 'scared' tight grip should do fine. Does the gun shoot low or roughly to point of aim? If your grip is super crazy tight, it should be shooting low, I'd think.
 
I'm experiencing problems with wrist-forearm that are clearly unrelated to any trips to the range with this gun, and have made an appointment with an orthopedic guy for next week.

Thanks everyone for pointing me in the right direction!
 
Good luck with the doc! Wrist problems usually aren't as bad as serious back problems but still very, very annoying not to mention the pain.

Again, good luck. :)
 
"Very, very annoying" hits it right on the head. Pain's not bad, but with temps soaring to 30 degrees and plenty of sun, I'm dying to shoot.
 
I spent months with a sore hand last year. I think shooting aggravated an injury that occured at work, but I can't prove it. While I am now better, the hard kicking blasters that I used to enjoy are off limits for more than a dozen rounds. This takes all of the fun out of a M-29!

I am experimenting with different style grips to see which helps the most. 1911 type pistols hurt the least, wheelguns the most.

My back up plan is to learn how to shoot left handed.
 
Another suggestion is to try a set of Pachmayr Gripper Decelerator grips on your gun. These aren't made for all guns, but they are super-effective at absorbing kick, and I've got them on several of my harder-kicking guns. I had to shoot with a wrist injury for a while a year or two back, and they made a big difference. Just be sure to get the DECELERATOR version, not the plain "gripper" - the Decelerator uses a softer, "tackier" rubber, which absorbs more recoil than the standard Gripper.
 
Two suggestions:

1. Wear a carpal tunnel wrist/forearm brace at night while you sleep. Immobilizing the area does wonders for healing. Especially if you're over 30.

2. get some shooting gloves with gel in the palm area. This dissipates the shock to your wrist more than you'd expect.

:cool:
 
My back up plan is to learn how to shoot left handed.
Click to expand...

...didn't see that 'till after I posted...

I've BTDT - Not a bad idea. I gave my right hand/wrist a good chance to heal and I got some great skill built up in my left hand. Not only in shooting, but in mousing as well (on the PC). You've gotta do the cold-turkey thing (which means NO RIGHT HAND for awhile) for this to really work, and for your body to heal.

For shooting it was not too bad, since all I had to do was apply proper shooting techniques, but for mousing I just had to practice. Once I finished practicing, I had to practice a bit more before I practiced after that. After about two weeks I was as nearly as proficient with my left hand as my right, in both shooting and mousing.

Now it's been over a year, and I use my left hand for 90% of my mousing, and about 35% of my shooting.

Pain - non-issue

Carpal-Tunnel (tingling, numbness) - non-issue

Never having had to have surgery: priceless.

:cool:
 
Thank god you guys aren't doctors: with this much great advice, I'd be to broke to shoot. Seriously, these are all wonderful ideas -- not a one I'm not going to try (sorry for the double negative).

Getting the brace today and starting to look for sources for grip and gloves. Struggling to use the mouse left-handed (may be the toughest aid of all, but I'll stay with it).

Read on a medical site dealing with carpal tunnel (though the docs have yet to confirm) that vitamin B-6 can be helpful, so of course I've bought some and will throw it into the mix (never heard of this before).

Before talking with you all, I sort of wanted to approach this as I ultimately did tennis elbow. After seeing numerous regular orthopedists with no luck, I finally got to a sports medicine guy whose advice was to "olay through it." I did, and it went (agonizingly) away. But I realize that's a completely different problem whose solution would be totally wrong for whatever this is.

Thanks so much again.
 
Vitamin B6 is used to help with nerve conduction velocity. IF the tunnel is impinged using Vitamin B6 may or maynot help your problem.

Do you feel tingling and numbness or a regular basis?

Has your grip strength been compromised?

Do you hands feel cold?

Do you have pain in the forearms, do your forearms feel tight?

These are questions I ask my patients if they feel they have some sort of repetitive stress problem. If you answered yes to these questions get seen ASAP.

Lets say there is inflammation of the tendon diagnoised by your doctor, you can try a diet of pineapples, it may help but its not a cure.

Pineapples have a natural enyme that helps with inflammation.

The 2 best solutions that I have found have been chiropractic care coupled with aggressive soft tissue work and home remedial exercise.

The second solution is carpal tunnel surgery. Results vary, rehab is long and patients may have a 50 percent decline in grip strength after the surgery.

Chiropractic care is cheaper and has been proven to work for CTS.


I'm not diagnosing your problem, just providing you with information. Get it checked out by a professional in your area as soon as possible Being sore for 3-4 days after 10 shots is indication you need treatment.
 
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This may sound stupid, but I thought I would mention it anyway.

How much could keyboard and mouse use aggravate such problems?

What effect does age have? (I keep getting older, in spite of taking precautions).

Glad to hear about the pineapples. Does this apply to canned as well as fresh pineapple?
 
Fresh Pineapples are the best. The canned stuff may have been heat treated killing the enzyme. The enzyme is a proteases called bromaline. Do a search under yahoo for "bromaline enzyme" a plain search will lead to an antihistamine.

How much could keyboard and mouse use aggravate such problems?

What effect does age have? (I keep getting older, in spite of taking precautions).
Click to expand...

Keyboarding and mousing can cause RSS. or Repetitive Stress Syndrome.

The repetition of typing 8 hours and day and moving a mouse around for that long of a time causes inflammation of the ligaments that are part of the carpal tunnel. This inflammation over a period of time decreases that size of the tunnel and you get impingment of the nerve tissue ie. The Median nerve.

Age is a complicating factor due to the amount of micro trauma that person has been subjected to. Over a period of time the micro trauma becomes a marco trauma. This is when the person seeks medical care for pain related to RSS.
 
45R:

First noticed mild pain in wrist area after firing less than 10 shots of 240 .44 Specials from my 3" revolver on two separate occasions. Even though recoil seemed unremarkable, I put it down to the round. Pain disappeared after about two days in each case.

Haven't been shooting since (weather), but pain has returned: first to inside edge of wrist, then moving to riright thumb, with stiffness of thumb, then up forearm.

No tingling or numbness on any basis. No noticeable compromise of grip strength, though I haven't pushed it. Hands no colder than usual. Pain in forearm accompanied by feeling of tightness.

Perhaps odd sounding, but I'm somewhat encouraged by spread of pain -- seems more like tendonitis, which I've had a number of times before and would much rather have again than CTS.

Got soonest available doctor's appointment, high-end wrist brace, started on B6 and raw pineapple (not cheap), left-hand mouse use.

And, showing my true colors, to protect --and console -- myself, I ordered an EMF Dakota (which I've long desired) in .357...so I could shoot .38's and share with my .357 Puma.

How's that for taking good care of myself?
 
Sounds like your on the right track. A really cheap remedy in taking care of pain is ice. :) Ice works if you use it for 15 minutes at a time. Use a layer of clothing between you skin and the ice. You will experience cold, burning, aching then numbness. :) Its one of natures cheapest analgesics.

Well buddy keep us posted. It sounds more like the tendons and the shealths that surround the tendons may be inflammed.

If your MD appointment is a more than a week away. Find a good sports Chiro in your area, chances are you can get a same day appointment. Ask if them to perform Finklestein's, Tinels of the wrist and elbow, Phalen's and Reverse Phalen's test. That will give them a really good idea of whats going on in your wrists. The sooner you get seen the better. Time is a complicating factor to any time of injury.

HTHs

Keep us posted!
 
Tbige-

You've gotten some really good advice here. I can't add much except to say I feel your pain. Literally. I posted along these same lines about a month ago. I was getting pain in my inner wrist and a bit of numbness in my pinky and ring fingers after shooting.

Well, on the advice of the good people here, I went to the doc. Just today in fact, he performed an EGW test on me and determined that I have mild-to-moderate carpal tunnel syndrome. The test was pretty ugly for me. I grew up around electric fences and have worked around electricity some in the past. My reaction to a long series of electric shocks was less manly than I would have hoped. I'm glad the nurse got a good chuckle. I see a specialist on Monday who will define some kind of treatment plan.

I was a bit despondent about the whole thing a few weeks back but now that I know what I'm up against I feel a whole lot better. CTS is something I can manage. I bought a wrist splint, I'm buying an ergo keyboard tomorrow and I'll shift as many duties to my left hand as I can. I hope you too can have a happy outcome.

To bring it back to shooting: I found some relief when I gave up double action shooting. At first I thought it was the recoil impulse that was hurting me. But then I realized that when I am shooting double action, I have a death grip on the gun. It's the only way I can keep up any kind of speed. That constant grasping was hurting me. A few weeks ago I switched back to my 1911 and the pain diminished (I would not say it disappeared). I shoot high thumbs and don't really need the same stranglehold on a 1911 to make it shoot fast and straight.

I don't know if you have such an option available to you but it's worth a thought. Personally, I hate the idea of never shooting revolvers again. They just do too many things too well. So for now, I will work on my weak hand double action shooting and let my strong side wrist heal up. Hope that helps.
 
buzz meeks: Yes it helps! You and everyone else have been FANTASTIC!
What I rather expect (fear) is your diagnosis. But I'm not altogether sure (read hopeful). For one thing, the discomfort is moving away from my wrist, upward toward my elbow. Just one night with a good brace made things better. Along with trying to mouse around left-handed. And I've never had any numbness or tingling (perhaps too early?)

But I'm yet to have any of the tests.

Of course I pray for a good old plain-vanilla case of tendonitis. But if it doesn't work out that way, I've already hugely decreased the burden it'll be by listening to these good folks. I truly don't want to know about weak-hand shooting, but I'm gradually coming to accept it would be beter than no shooting. And it's not as if I'd had a severed hand.

No way I'm gonna be a wimp, no matter how it comes down. But I would like to be smart...and early to get on top of it. And with all the help I've gotten, I feel I've accomplished just that. And met some awfully nice folks in the process.
 
Don't be too despondent if it does turn out to be CTS rather than tendonitis - even CTS is eminently cure-able, and usually responds well to appropriate treatment and a few months' rest. For severe cases, microsurgery is sometimes required, but this is a very small minority of cases. I'm sure your doctor will be able to diagnose and treat whatever's wrong without such extreme measures.
 
Well, I finally got to the doctor, who diagnosed the condition as DeQuarvains -- essentially tendonitis in the wrist -- and sent me to rehab. My rehab therapist isn't quite so sure -- apparently I don't meet the classic test. She's made me a cast, is administering cortisone electrically through the skin (no shot...no pun), and says after three sessions I should give it a shot (pun intended) as acid test. Should know mid-next week. Got a funny feeling it ain't gonna be all that simple.
 
Good advice. You got to the doc. What kind of doc was it? Ultimately the problem could well be any number of problems. Just stick close to your therapist and your doc.

Little hint. CTS is rampant and insurance companies are screaming about the costs. So look out for interferance from insurance companies.

Since you've been to medical sites you have a pretty good idea of CTS symptoms and progress.

I've had bilateral CRTS relief and it is worth the fix. What was the deciding factor to go ahead with surgery? Sleep. CTS prohibited adequate sleep.
 
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