Healthy Living

My mom had one on her wrist.

Her doctor broke it from outside yesterday, it didn't hurt at all.

Now her hand is colder than the other, and a little purple, is it normal?

I smashed mine about 5 years ago or more with a medical dictionary. It stayed gone for about 4 1/2 years and now it has come back and I am going to have it surgically removed but it can be smashed. To smash it I wouldn't recommend doing it yourself because you will never hit yourself hard enough, you really have to slam it, it has one of those hurts so good feelings. It hurts like hell to hit it and break it but the sensation of it being gone off your joint is such a relief at the same time. Good Luck!!!!

omg ! my cyst looks just like the picture i need to get it rmoved dont like it being there . sucks

i have a GC on my right hand, but it is on a tendon, so when i move my hand, the cyst moves to. I find it quite disturbing!

I was Googling "lump on hand by wrist" because I have one and was like WTF is this and found your site and now I know and will have my husband smash it now lol

hehe sweet i want 1!!!!! (just so i can smash it wit a really big book) :D

I got more relaxed when I saw this forum about the ganglion cyst, as I realised that I wasn't the olny person experiencing such a thing. My cyst was becoming more and more painful. It was preventing me from doing sports (surf, windsurf...) and even simple things like pushing myself from the floor or from a chair.
Last week I made a decision and went to a doctor. He removed my cyst with a small and quick surgery. All the pain is gone now and I got back the full and free movement of my wrist. I hope that it doesn't come back again!
Thank you all for the postings. They've been very helpfull.

Good luck to everybody!

Emanuel

I have had a cyst apparently for about a year now. I am an active baseball player, and I used to do gymnastics a long time ago. Another factor that may be in this could possibly be the playing guitar hero on expert and playing the real guitar while stretching out my fingers. The bump is small and on the top of my wrist by the joint that connects the finger bones. It doesn't hurt when I touch it but it used to if I pushed down on it. It seems quite harmless but I should probably get it checked out with a doctor. I figured it would go away but it has been there for a while now. Anyway thats whats happening with mine, thanks for the information everyone.

heyyyy my name is tyler allwell my frend has the same on his hand ok then talk to you later bye

I'm very curious to know if the 'Bible' solution works for the Gangloin on the other side of your hand (left palm, on the left, near the pulse) I'm not certain since it's so near the pulse? If anyone can please give me some kind of insight.

I have had one for six years. it became bigger the last year and yesterday I had it taken by surgery. Im excitied to see my wrist without "Ed" there anymore. Yes he was there for so long that it got its own name :P makes u crazy :)

Would putting a heating pad or one of those sticky heating pads for pains and aches help it go down? The thought of smashing it with a book sounds painful.

does anyone know for sure if whacking this darn ganglion will work and not damage something else? please let me know

thank you all of you i got this one in my left hand i was very worried now it seem ok

I have had my cyst for about 7 months now, my mom said I used to get them when I was little and she used to rub them out. I have tried that, I rub it everyday. But it never seems to go down. I'm going to try to smash it tonight with a book, maybe that will help. I was always too afraid to do it, but i'll have a friend do it for me. Hopefully it works, if not, will i have to have it surgically removed, or can it be drained. Mine is hard like bone, nothin close to being squishy

I have a ganglion cyst on my right wrist and everytime I use that wrist it hurts or aches a lot. I remember when I first got it, I was at Cheerleading camp for 3 days and on the second day my wrist started to hurt. When I looked down at it there was a small little bump. I showed my room mate and she thought it was akward and so did I. One year later I went to the docters to get it checked on because I am also a gymnast and everytime I did a backhand spring it would hurt. One year later it wasnt a little bump anymore either it was big! Some people thought it was a cyst that my brother got in the middle of his hand and his would move all around and was very squishy. Mine seems to just sit there and it is not squishy at all! It is like as hard as a rock! Well anyways I was wondering if i should go get surgery on it to get it taken out during the summer when I dont have gymnastics and be in a splint for 6 months. What do you think?

Last August my cyst appeared out of nowhere. Its always been hard and looked like a bone sticking out of my wrist. It isn't painful unless I squeeze it or use my hand too much, then it just gets a little achy. However the last couple of days its been more sore and hurt to open my hand big. Today though it's flat and squishy. What happens when they rupture? Does the fluid take awhile to disperse? Ive been rubbing on it to try and help move the fluid around and its a little sore but I think thats from pushing on the nerve. Let me know if you've had this happen with yours too and if this means mine MIGHT be going away....*crossing fingers**

Well I just found a cyst on my right wrist. I've been having pain in it off and on for about 6 months, but there was no sign of a lump. I thought it was maybe just arthritis, but I just discovered a lump.. GRRRRR. I had one on the base on my middle finger, right hand, palm about 8 years ago and had it removed. It was successful and I'm thinking the same for this one. It hurts so d*** bad I will have to buy a brace. I was wondering if anyone has any pain relievers for a wrist cyst. Thanks!!!

Dont Smash with a book That is the caveman way and it only returns bigger and worse.You need to get them drained by a doctor then he fills the sach with cortison which prevents the fluid build up.However it may take take up to 3 doctor visits to see permanent results.Another option is to have it surgically removed but usually has a much lower recurrence rate

I also have one on my Left Wrist, seems to be a very occurring factor to be on the left wrist... anyways i have tried the book thing multiple times with no results. what i did when i got one the first time was take a towel and twist it up using my hands twisting the towel in opposite directions. it went away for a while.

Hi, Lynnette! I think I also have a ganglion cyst. I got a bit worried because it wouldn;t go away, that is until I googled a bit and found your blog. Thanks for sharing the info, I feel so releaved! :)

I've got one almost identical to the one in the photo. My doc has one too! He suggested the book method; tried it but no worky. So... out came the trusty replacable blade box cutter. Sanitized the blade and the area, and stabbed myself! Incision about 1/4 in. wide by 1/4 in. deep. You'll know you've gone deep enough when the goo shoots out like toothpaste! Less pain than smashing my hand with the stupid bible!YMMV...

Take Homeopathy medicines:
LEDUM PAL 200 potency, 4 drops morning
THIOSINAMINUM 200 potency 4 drops evening
These 2 non chemical medicines will cure GANGLION
within weeks.

Ok i left a comment on Nov 11 sayin that since my sept 9th comment my cyst had got smaller and stopped being pain, its not bigger than ever and even more painful! i got a feeling that this is going to be a recurring thing and not sure whether an operation would get rid of it permanantly?

My wife just smashed mine on elbow with a book. It spread out. I covered it with an Ace bandage to apply pressure. Had a drink.

I had cyst on my right wrist removed 2 years ago and it took 10 days to heal enough so I could get back to work. Even now the area where the scar is feels a little numb, but it doesn't bother me at all. I just noticed that I got another cyst on the same hand but 1 inch higher. It hurts when I work long hours so it has to go. I think I'm going to try some other method than surgery this time.

I left a comment on september 9th and since then my ganglion cyst has got smaller but its still there but no longer painful, i love it now lol!

wow, you really CAN find "anything" on ANYTHING on the world wide web! thanks for the info, i have a lump on my wrist and think it is a GC too now. i have had one before but i massaged it/pushed it and it went away (so i tend to think the bible method works)but i have another one which is bigger and better!!! mwah-ah-ah! i think i'll just leave it and see what happens. my hand does get cold sometimes when it shouldnt but after reading everyones posts, i guess its normal! :)

I've had my cyst for three years now and we've tried smacking the dumb thing many times - still hasn't worked... Doesn't always hurt - it comes and goes; when it does hurt, I can do practically NOTHING with my left hand...

I'm glad that I found this forum, I really didn't know what this growth was on my left hands wrist. My friends and I would examine it and joke that another finger was being birthed in my hand, lol. It doesn't hurt, but it's just weird to have. Since it will probably go away, I guess I don't have to worry much about it. I can now tell people that I have a cool tumor!

I am having an ganglion cyst on my wrist(hand). Now it has 3rd or 4th time which has appeared and now its paining and creating problem in holding things and doing computer work because i have to work on computer almost 8 to 10 hours daily.I recently visited the surgeon not orthopedic doctor, when i went to him at that time the bump was not their means it was disappeared so it was ok but now my question is that should i go for surgery when this cyst is not in my hand, it has not disappeard permanently but it has disappeared to come back again after some time. but i think shoul i go for surgery without its appaerance on wrist.Is it ok to do or should i wait the cyst appear on my wrist and than go for surgery.

I have had 2 of these removed by surgery and they did not come back. I had tried having the doctor drain them and they did eventually fill up again.

But, now I have a huge one on top of my hand that is so ugly! It' doesn't hurt, but I look like a witch. I had another develop in my other wrist and thank god it went away. That one actually ached sometimes.

If the acupuncture can get rid of it, I'm going to check it out. How much does it cost? Does anyone know of one in Indianapolis? Does it hurt?

Thanks!

An update of sorts to my most recent comment about trying the acupuncture that was mentioned by Diana...
I went to the doctor today (for something else), and I mentioned in passing the idea of trying acupuncture for the ganglion cyst. He immediately took notice and said, "For the pain?" I said, "Well hopefully to try and make it go away."

My doctor said he wouldn't recommend it. I guess acupuncture may be good as a temporary relief from the pain, but not a permanent solution -- in his opinion. I'm guessing he favors the surgery as the more permanent option.

Neither are in my immediate future. My ganglion cyst comes & goes quite regularly nowadays. I can deal with it at this point.

I have an annoying ganglion! i only noticed it about 3 weeks ago but im sure it was there before that but a bit smaller, every week it seems to be gettin bigger and bigger its about the size of the picture above at the mo, it really does cause me ALOT of pain ALOT of the time! i told my doctor this he said 'it shouldn't hurt' but it does! i would consider chopping my own arm off to get rid of the pain, i kinda like having the lump tho, makes me feel kinda special lol! something to show off as i also have one pupil bigger than the other (anisocoria) which i was born with and ppl find it fascinating and its usually a good conversation started when ppl notice it! anyway, my ganglion suits me but the pain is unbearable, im afraid i am going to have to go to the doctors AGAIN and plead for surgery or something to get rid of it! i will be sad to see it go but relieved of the agony!

I see that you mentioned that you go through acupuncture treatments and that you would never consider surgery. I do not know if you have heard of the statistics or not but there is an 80% chance of the cyst not returning. In some cases if a cyst remains in the body it can become larger. Ive seen alot of patient have a cyst that grows in between the bones, arteries and tendons. They, like you, tried other techniques which proved helpful at first but only on the outside of the body. Personally, and mind you this is just advice, I would see your orthopedic to discuss your options at the very least but still look into surgery. The recovery time could be nothing if things are worse than you think.

Now THAT is an option I would definitely consider. Have never tried acupuncture before, but I agree with Diana. I would go the acupuncture route before I'd go the surgery route. But that's just me.

At this point, mine is still coming and going -- but less frequently than before, and it sticks around less time than it used to. (I truly believe the prednisone -- taken for another reason -- had some effect on my ganglion cyst.)

My chiro had one from gymnastics and placing a lot of strain on her wrist and she acupunctured hers for three straight weeks every other day and it went away and everytime she feels that it might come back, she does another acupuncture treatment. I would never get surgery for it. Acupuncture is the farthest I will go. I have had it done and it went away for almost a year and then it came back. But to have surgery, is way more risk and takes a lot of recovery time and no guarantee that it won't come back.

Peggy, Ive had similar problems as you and I just had surgery after going through my pain for 4 and half years, you might want to look into contacting an orthopedic surgeon.

Ive had a ganglia for about 4 years, my cyst would pop and come back all the time. Unfortunately, that awful tale about wackin it with a book did not work for me, and because of this tale alot of people do not realize that the cyst does indeed come back. The cyst also grows, mine grew in between my tendons and radial artery, when i went to have surgery because of the pain the Dr. was like oh it will be just a small incision you'll even be able to go back to work the next day. Well, it wasnt, my incision is 3 three inches long, and I will have to be exposed to additional therapy because the cyst was larger than he thought and the Dr. accidently cut my radial artery. Anyone who has a ganglia for a long period of time, I recommend you have it removed before things get worse. The statistics for the cyst to come back is 20%, and worth it.

I had one, after I put some sudden stress on my wrist, it went away after about 3 months of reducing the stress on the wrist during my exercising.

I've had my cyst for about 3yrs on & off. I used to hit it against the wall however, I've stopped doing that as it now causing me pain. The bump is now harder & shaped differently. Lately I have my husband apply pressure to try to squeeze it out, YUCK. It hurts. Very annoyed by it. DOES HEAT WORK?

I have just found out that I too share this little lump in the wrist the same as allot of people,the pain used to only affect me if I bent my hand back which I have to say I don't do as much as I thought but now it hurts almost every way I move it. I have straped a magnet to it for the past few days and the pain is a whole lot better. I don't know if I should get it cut out??? what do you all think.

its been 3 years or more since with my cyst it comes and goes, but i have alot of pain in my wrist, and pain pills dose not work. i'm thinking about getting surgery just to get rid of it.

I've had the same cyst on my wrist for at least 5 years now. I never went to the doctor because it comes and goes. I actually have one on my left and right wrist. The left seems to come more often. Mine are located at the bottom of my wrist toward the insides of my hand....they look very weird but are painless.

I had a cyst on my left wrist; I got it removed a couple months ago. At my great amazement, just today I saw it resurfaced. After reading comments about smacking the cyst, I used a block of 100 index cards to beat the crap out of it. :-))) Guess what? It is gone. I will beat it up each time I see it poking its head out. :-)))

Hi
This is my 2nd cyst,the first one went away on its own but this 2nd one is much bigger. I was really worried at first as I tend to be a bit of a drama queen!!! A friend had one and got it cut out, it never came back! Im thinking about asking for this as hitting it hard with a book did not work, it just hurt! I work with children and am down leaning on the floor quite a bit which is making it worse i think!
Just wondering - are the injections sore and do they get rid of them for good, thanks
Emma

i hurt my wrist doing cheerleading and ive never fully been able to use it anymore. it sometimes hurts when I write and i cant do push ups or any more tumbling or anything. last summer i noticed that i had a bump on the back of that wrist.
im considering having it removed but im not sure that the cyst is what is causing the pain in my wrist. what do you recommend?
did smashing it with the book hurt at all??
ive heard of that but it doesnt sound pleasant but if it works then il do it :)
thanks!

I had my friend smash my gangloin cyst with a book binder. It went away for about 2 years, but then it came back. We smashed it again and it went away, however my wrist is sometimes sore there.

I went to a chiropractor and FWIW my ganglion disappeared within 2-3 weeks.

For what it's worth, I seemed to have good experience with Prednisone.

I was taking it for another reason, and wa-lah, my ganglion cyst magically went away. And this is the longest time that it's stayed away too! (nearly 2 months and counting... ganglion cyst free)

I'm not sure if any doctor would prescribe Prednisone for a ganglion cyst though. (doubt it)

I've got a ganglion too; it's on my wrist, level with my shirt cuff. I'm going to the doctor tomorrow so I'll just double check it's nothing more sinister. i do recall I had one years ago and I think it went by itself. Evidently it's back!

Nathan,did it hurt when you smacked your cyst with a book?Just curious.

I'm a Union carpenter I think it may be from carring heavy stuff my wife says it's from being on the computer too much, LOL

I've got 2 one on the bottom side of my left wrist it's been there for over a year, today I noticed I'm getting one on the top of my right wrist OH,GREAT anyhow I just had my daughter smack the crap out of the one on my left wrist with the edge of a one inch book wow it hurts now anyhow it's not hard anymore :) Maybe it will go away.

THX for the info,

Mark the Bumpy

I have lump on the back of my right wrist its not painful but hard as a rock back in 1990 i had a ganglion cyst removed from my left wrist that formed several years after my younger sister slammed my wrist in the school door that cyst was painful but however this one isn't so I am thinking it might be a cancerous tumor

Having this cyst for 2 weeks was very uncomfortable on my wrist. As a child I had one drained once. My wrist is sore but the cyst is gone down to my surprise did it just dissolve it self? I wish that it stays gone, gee....what a nightmare as a Stenographer.

I have had one on my wrist for about 5 years now. A few months ago it "magically" went away, and I was so excited...but then it came back about a month later. I read on here about someone who said their mom just rubs it applies pressure whenever it comes back, and it goes away again. I tried this a few days ago, not really expecting it to work, but it did! Within maybe 4 or 5 days it practically was gone again. It was so easy that I am still not totally convinced it wasnt just coincedence. Next time it comes back, I will have to try it again and see...
FYI my doctor a few years ago told me that it would be very painful to just whack it away, so Ive always been to afraid to try it.

I have one too! Man I thought I had a freaking tumor!

So I'm sick of this thing and I'm bout to whack it. But I'm with Lexy... is it gunna hurt? Anybody... anybody...

Omg! i have one just like yours! mine's bigger though. and it's on my right hand at the same spot as yours but just on the right n not left..phew what a releif! i'm not alone! eheh thanks for posting that article. i've just finished reading your article and i'm feeling much much better now. So hm many people are smashing their cyst with a bible eh.. hmm ...i'm curious of one thing "DOES IT HURT?" ...please reply to my email and let me know! must know before trying that out because i'm very much afraid of pain! i've read many of the replies you've got but none of them mentioned anything about pain or how it feels afterwards..
thanks

Heya, I got this stupid cyst in 2005, noticed it when i was entering the army and had to have it checked, so I did by the family doctor, he said the exact same stuff in the posts above, it comes and goes quite often its starting to get annoying and painful though as it returns its no longer squishy in texture its quite sharp, I usu to be able to do a one handed cartwheel and that would break the cyst, but now its often hard to swing a hammer or do a push up, perhaps I should look into getting it surgicaly removed, because when it doesn't hurt at time when I do anything to aggrevate the cyst, it will return with its aches and pains...

Well, the ones I have had injected (Not sure exactly what it is they do to it, like they put stuff into it, I think anti-inflammatory type stuff)only one of them came back after that. I hurts a bit to get it don, but nothing extreme.
My old doctor had one on her hand, and she had to get it surgically removed, she left it too long to do anything else with it.
The cyst I have now, showed up about 6 months ago, to my knowledge, and has been annoying me a fair bit ever since. I will eventually go to the Dr about it, and see if it can be fixed too..

It is hard to know what to do about them.
Injections don't guarantee they won't come back, but I guess it is worth it to try to get rid of it, if it is annoying enough.

This feels like it is pressing on my nerves and shooting pain up my arm... and yeah, computers don't help with it, the position I use my hand in to type and so on.

Hope my comment was of some use to you.. Anything else you want to know, just ask.

Have a nice day/night. :-)

Lauren -
My ganglion cyst keeps coming and going. It's done so about 3 times now since I wrote this post in June 2007.

Once it went away because I fell (hard) on my wrist. And boy, did I feel the liquid gushing to all parts of my wrist. I was very strange. But I was also SO glad the second I fell, because I knew my cyst was going away. For good -- I hoped. But it came back in a month or so.

The other 2 times, I have no idea what made it go away. It happened overnight... I just woke up and it was gone. (That's fun!)

These days, when it comes back, it's starting to make my wrist ache more than it did in those early days. It's a long dull ache (rather than a pain), but I can tell that it's likely to become more of a 'pain' as time goes on. My doctor thinks so too.

He said I might want to consider having it drained if it becomes painful over time. Currently, I'm not at all interested in doing anything for it. But we'll see how the pain progresses.

Lauren - Do you recommend the injections to get rid of ganglion cysts? Is it painful? How long before your cyst reappears after an injection? Thanks for any info you can provide...

Just wondering, how's your cyst going now?
I have one which looks a lot like yours in the pictures. Mine causes my arm and hand to ache a fair bit. I will eventually go to the Dr's about it.. not too worried though, as this is my 4th cyst.. I usually get them a bit lower on my hands, and get injections in them to get rid of them.

Thanks for posting this! It helped so much! I feel so much better. My mom said I might have gotten a gangly cyst after I had noticed the bump earlier today. At first I was really worried because it sounds weird. So I started looking online and was reading stuff that made me even worry even more . Stuff about surgery and even just the definition of a cyst which is a little disturbing. After reading this websit it was SUCH a relief. It was so helpful! So thanks!

I smacked my with a hard cover book after reading this, it went away immediately, and it was really big, so that method does actually work hah! I was just giving it a shot.

does ice and water help a cyst

I have a ganglion, it looks exactly like the picture of your wrist in the first post except mine is on my right wrist and i am going into the navy moast the time my does not hurt and there is alot of limited motion as the doctors call it i call it really freaking pain full when i try to put wieght on it or stretch it. i am considering the wacking it i have read a few pages where wacking it was prefered and one that said you could injure yourself more then help, another site suggested wearing a wrist splint that limited movement of the wrist will make it decrease in size, if anyone knows of any more remidies please email me ^_^ thnx for the time.

~sibyll~

Hi Ali -
Yep, my cyst was squishy... it actually got squishier as time went on.

But it was boney too... it stuck out like a broken bone in my wrist. It clearly had edges to it.

My wrist pain was more like an ache... a dull ache when I was in the midst of using my wrist.

The bigger the cyst grew, the more noticeable the pain was and the longer the ache stuck around.

But I swear, it was like magic... I didn't do a thing (that I'm aware of) and the cyst was magically gone overnight.

Now, it's been about 3 weeks after it went away, and it's starting to resurface again. Very slightly... more boney than squishy at this point.

My mom says every time hers reappears, she just puts pressure on it and rubs it to make it go away. I'm going to try that this time around.

Overall though... my ganglion cysts (and those of other people I've talked to) are completely harmless and relatively painless. They just look weird.

So was your cyst actually "squishy"? My cyst (I'm assuming that's what it is) is still in the small, painless, bone-like stage, so I'm reluctant to go to a doctor. Aside from putting pressure on the cyst itself, did you have any other wrist pain - like by putting weight on it when pushing yourself up from the floor?

I have 2 of those little ganglion cysts exactly where they are on the diagram - my first finger, each hand, bottom side, right where a ring would be. never knew what they were! they come and go, get really hard then disappear - I even thought they were switching hands whenever I couldn't find one!

Hey Cynthia -

Thanks for checking out our site. It's nice to have loyal visitors like you...

Jim says Hi!