As mentioned in a previous post, I had a severe fall on September 10th. It is now 2.5 weeks later, September 25th, and only now am I starting to feel some symptoms of the injury to my hand, which is very strange. The area circled in the anatomy image here swelled up massively right after the fall, but to my relief, a little stretching and some time seemed to allow it to resolve. The swelling quickly went down. I didn't even apply ice on the area. So I thought I was in the clear, but I just don't know why this is now coming up later. I'm now getting pains totally coming up in that area occasionally and I'm able to stretch and massaage out the pain, but it seems that pain keeps coming back more frequently. So I might have to see a doctor about it I guess if it won't get better on its own soon. The thing is, there could have been a fracture, or just an injury to a ligament or something. Here's what ChatGPT had to say about it :
Ah yes — that picture makes the location much clearer. Your circle is not primarily over the wrist joint itself. It's over the proximal hypothenar eminence: the fleshy muscular pad on the palm side beneath the little finger, immediately beyond the wrist.
In the area you've circled are the hypothenar muscles, particularly abductor digiti minimi and flexor digiti minimi brevis. Deeper underneath are the pisiform and hook of the hamate, and the ulnar nerve and artery travel through this general region as well.
That actually makes your description of the pain sound more compatible with a soft-tissue/muscular injury than I was picturing before. You had immediate swelling there after the impact, then it rapidly settled; now the pain feels muscular and stretching or massaging that exact fleshy area makes the pain disappear. A previously bruised or strained hypothenar muscle becoming intermittently tight or irritated as you've resumed normal hand use would fit that reasonably well.
But there's one particular thing I wouldn't completely dismiss after a significant impact: the hook of the hamate sits deep underneath approximately the area you've circled. A hamate injury can cause pain on the palm/pinky side, particularly with gripping. It's considerably less common than a soft-tissue injury, but because your hand was never X-rayed, we can't rule it out from the previous hospital imaging.
A useful distinction over the next few days is whether the pain feels like a broad patch of sore/tight flesh that changes when you stretch and massage it, versus an extremely precise deep point that hurts when you press directly down on it. The first would make muscle/tendon irritation more plausible; the latter would make me more interested in one of the underlying bones.
And importantly, your pink circle is not directly centered over the TFCC area I mentioned before—that structure is farther back toward the actual wrist joint. Seeing the location has moved hypothenar muscle injury / underlying hamate-pisiform region much higher on my list than TFCC.
So if this remains occasional and continues responding to gentle stretching/massage, I'd watch it for now. But if it becomes persistent, hurts significantly with gripping, develops numbness/tingling into the little/ring fingers, becomes weak, swells again, or you find one exquisitely tender hard point underneath that muscle, I'd have it examined and mention explicitly: “I had direct trauma here with immediate swelling three weeks ago, and the hand was never X-rayed.” That should help them decide whether dedicated hand/wrist imaging is appropriate. ❤️
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