I’m renaming the problem with my thumb from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome to the more benign but accurate, and rhyming Dumb Numb Thumb, eh, Syndrome. Well okay, but it mostly rhymes.

Yes, after a trip to the neurologist I can fairly accurately claim to not have anything really wrong with my thumb after all. Well, there was/is something wrong, it just not really very wrong.

My visit to the neurologist was an interesting experience. Upon entering the examining room, the nurse told me to put on a gown and the doctor would be right in. I said, yes, but I’m here for my thumb. She said he would be doing a full neurological work up. Well then, down to my skivvies and on with the gown.

The doctor came in after I had a chance to thumb (no pun intended) through a copy of wired magazine. He reminded me of a quieter Jeff Bezos except that the doctor only giggled a bit instead of Jeff’s famous laugh. Either way, he was a pleasant man with a sense of humor which I find a great trait in a doctor.

After asking a multitude of questions about habits that would affect my hands, he did do an exam. He checked my hands and wrists and checked the reflexes in my knees. At that point I made a comment abut having only coming in for an issue with my thumb and I was a bit surprised to find myself in an exam gown. The doctor said that the nurse gets a bit carried away but quickly followed up with people are often wrong with where the cause of a problem was and he often needed to do a more thorough exam. My problem was located pretty much where we thought it was.

So after some more talk and examining I mentioned how I know this sort of thing surely drives doctors crazy, but I had been doing some research online. He immediately asked, “so what is it?” I answered, “carpal tunnel.” His reply was along the lines that it could be, but if it were I would have more widespread numbness.

No, he narrowed it down to what I thought was a possible cause; that being a lot of work I had done at my computer at work when this came on. He said it most likely was the nerve feeding my thumb only that I had aggravated from the repetitive mousing and most likely the wrist pad I was resting on.

Since my hand was feeling almost completely better by the time I saw him, he recommended doing nothing and waiting. we could do a test for carpal tunnel syndrome, but that a) includes electrical shock and b) is only really done if you intend to remediate the problem through surgery. I opted for waiting and seeing.

So there you have it. I had all that annoying numbness and I didn’t even have a named problem to show for it. Oh, I got the comments at work, “well of course you never had a problem before, you normally don’t do any work.” But no named problem.

Still, I’m glad that my Dumb Numb Thumb Syndrome is going away. It really was annoying.