A TFCC tear causes little-finger-side wrist pain with twisting and pushing. Most settle without surgery: 4 to 6 weeks in a brace, then strengthening, with normal use back by around 3 months.
A smooth lump on the wrist is most often a ganglion cyst: trapped joint fluid, not cancer, and around half go away on their own. Don’t smash or pop it; if it hurts, aspiration and surgery both work, with very different odds of it coming back.
De Quervain’s tenosynovitis is thumb-side wrist pain from two tendons squeezed in their tunnel, worst when you lift thumbs-up. Splint early and change how you lift, and most settle in 4 to 6 weeks; injection and surgery are for the stubborn few.
A broken wrist is usually healed enough to come out of the cast at about 6 weeks, works for daily life by about 3 months, and takes 6 to 12 months for full strength. Here’s every week in between, cast or plate.
A scaphoid fracture is a break in the wrist bone at the base of the thumb, and up to 1 in 5 hide on the first X-ray. Most undisplaced breaks need 8 to 12+ weeks in a cast; a tender snuffbox after a fall means imaging, not waiting.
Night tingling in the thumb, index and middle fingers that shakes out is early carpal tunnel, and a neutral night splint helps most people within 2 to 6 weeks. Constant numbness and a flattening thumb mound mean the nerve is on a deadline.