“Just hold a hammer with your injured hand and let the weight of the hammer head twist your wrist back.” That’s what the surgeon told me to do to regain range of motion after my first wrist surgery. (By the way, recommendations linking hammers and wrist therapy can be found on the Internet) Who knew? I remember thinking, “It’s 2011, that seems so primitive.” Thousands upon thousands of dollars of
expenses by fifteen to twenty different medical providers are being accrued and I’m being told to use a hammer? It was uncomfortable, plus my grip was very limited and weak from the injuries, using the hammer was difficult while convinced that, “ there has to be something better than this.”
The range of motion goal is termed as supination, palm up. It seemed impossible at the time, but that’s what the surgeon needed to see me achieve before the second surgery could be performed to remove the steel fixator in my wrist. About four months after the accident occurred, I was able to roll around fairly well, so I wheel chaired myself back and forth in my wood shop till I produced the first crude but effective model of my version of how supination can be achieved without using something as primitive as a hammer. The contraption I had just built surprised my wife, my son and myself as I inserted my injured hand into the mouth of this “V” shaped vision. I remember how it was, the dread of picking the hammer up and using it. As I relaxed my arm in my lap, gravity and leverage put a little persuasion to my wrist and they heard me say, “Ahhh, this actually feels good!” And because of the design and shape accompanied by the logical physics of it all, it worked very well to ease my wrist into the supination, palm up position. So, after a mere two weeks of exercise with my new “wrist twister”, by my next appointment I had achieved enough supination to satisfy the doctor’s requirements to set a date for my second wrist surgery and remove the implanted hardware. My doctor asked, “What’s that in your lap”? I responded, “This is how I achieved that palm up position you wanted to see,” as I demonstrated. He and his nurse were grinning with their heads nodding in unanimous approval. At that moment, Charlotte and I felt that we were on to something that would help other people with wrist injuries and put the hammer back in the toolbox where it belongs. The “LeverWrist” is the latest innovation, a range of motion assistant with no moving parts, a common sense logic utility device that offers six directions of movement and gets results. My surgeon and my certified hand therapist like it and it works. What about you and your wrist injury, will you choose…a hammer, or will you “lever your wrist” with a tool specifically designed to regain range of motion?
