Ali Hunter is the OT extraordinaire. She asked all the usual questions, then she actually measured my range of movement and grip strength. She's the first person to have done it properly with all the tools, and even I was surprised at how bad my right wrist is. I was certain, even though it's sore, that my right hand was significantly stronger than my left; turns out it's quite a bit weaker.
The aim of the gauntlet is to take the weight off my ulna (and therefore my TFCC) when I'm riding.
Ali then took a sheet of thermoplastic, cut it to size, melted it (at 65○C apparently) in an electric frying pan like my mum used for cooking in the caravan.
She'd been thinking quite a bit about how best to make a splint specifically to wear while riding the bike, so she cut a tiny hole in one end and draped it all over my arm, with my thumb through the hole. She held it in place, with my wrist at the angle I usually hold it while riding, and the end of the splint along the palm where the handlebar will sit.
The plastic cooled in shape and Ali took it and did some cutting, cleaning up and
added some padding in a very fetching pink colour. I just don't understand why medical companies think bright pink makes things invisible. I even looked it up online thinking it was just that Ali only had one colour. Nope, it's called Hapla Fleecy web, and it only comes in 'flesh' colour. Let me tell you, medical experts, if your flesh is that colour you need to go and see a doctor quick smart. It's never going to be invisible, so they could at least make it a less embarrassing colour. With a couple more minor adjustments, she added Velcro straps and away I went.
It's very comfortable and it does hold my wrist firm while I'm riding. Haven't tried it on singletrack yet, but bunny hopping up and down kerbs last night at 25mph I was able to pretty much forget I was wearing it.
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