Wrist arthroscopy leaves two tiny scars and hides two very different recoveries. A debridement takes weeks; a TFCC repair takes months, and the movement that has to be locked down is forearm rotation rather than wrist bending.
A small operation with two under-discussed parts: ganglions can recur because the stalk back to the joint is the real target, and the scar on the back of the wrist can leave you stiffer than the lump ever did.
Finger joint replacement buys pain relief and straighter fingers, not more movement or more strength. The scar capsule that forms around the implant is what holds the result, which is why the splinting program decides the outcome.
Fusion sounds like the worst option and is the most reliable one for pain. A fused wrist still turns palm-up and palm-down, because rotation happens somewhere else entirely, and finger fusions are set at an angle chosen for the job that finger does.
Surgery for a stiff elbow restores the range in theatre; the six weeks afterwards decide how much you keep. The elbow scars faster than any joint in the arm, so a week of resting it because it hurts can undo the whole operation.
A plate on a broken wrist exists so the joint can move while the bone heals. Move early, load late. Plus the tendon complication that can turn up a year after a perfect operation.
Cubital tunnel surgery relieves pressure; it doesn’t repair a nerve. Symptoms return in a fixed order: pain first, tingling next, numbness slowly, strength last and least reliably. Plus how decompression and transposition differ.
A repaired nerve regrows at about a millimeter a day, and there’s a sign you can track at home each month to watch it happening. Plus the sensory re-education that decides whether the hand ends up usable.
A screw holds a scaphoid still but can’t supply blood, which is why this bone heals slowly and unreliably. Union is confirmed on CT, not X-ray, and that distinction decides when you can safely load the wrist.
A few centimeters of incision and a four to six month recovery. Tennis elbow surgery removes degenerate tendon; rebuilding good tendon is still done by loading it, which is why the rehab looks like the treatment you had before surgery.