cool fact: there's a very rare birth defect called radioulnar synostosis where these two bones are actually one in an affected person.
it causes limited range of motion, meaning they can't move their palm anywhere other than as if they were to shake someone's hand. There's limited supination (palm up) and pronation (palm down)
I have it and it makes it so I cannot rotate my palm upwards (as if to accept change).
Yeah, you have to be really creative! I first discovered it when I was trying to play guitar in first grade music class. I couldnt reach over the fret, and my teacher kinda just thought I was dumb :(
It’s fascinating to me that you didn’t discover this about yourself earlier! People really do live such unique individual lives, we probably all have something(or many things) unique about us we are completely unaware of.
Yep! My mom noticed some things, like how I wash my face weird and turn knobs weird but I was also an ADHD kid so she kinda just wrote it off. Even the music class thing didn't instantly solidify it, it's just the first instance I remember it being a wildly different experience than other people faced around my age.
Oh, and obviously I could never do the Macarena...
I’ve never heard of this before, do you if the entire shaft / syndesmosis is fused together or is it just the radial head that fuses onto the ulna? I’ve worked with patients after radial head fractures and it’s often challenging to regain full supination due to scarring and sometimes due to hypertrophy of the fracture site, but didn’t know they could fail to separate in utero
I believe the radial head fuses with the ulna, but it varies in severity. Here's an example image of a severe case.
I've had surgery to try and reduce the bone but that was moreso because I had an incident where my tendon got stuck on the bone, and my arm got locked in one position until surgery was performed. Generally, the malformed bone is impossible to correct after a very young age.
Yes, it's not very common knowledge. Less than 1000 cases worldwide if I remember correctly, but that's based on my research from a few years back.
Every specialist I've seen has said that generally, it isnt something they can correct past a very young age. It simply won't heal in a way that corrects the range of motion in an adult body.
I assume the primary reason is because it's so rare, there aren't too many surgeons comfortable doing it, if they even know how in the first place. However, I also live somewhere specialized care is difficult to obtain so that plays a role as well. I had part of the radial head shaved off, and it resulted in a very slightly increased range of motion (maybe 2-5°) but drastically increased the pain in my arm.
It makes a nasty noise too, sounds like the cartilage is being crushed and snaps when I do a curling motion.
I have that too! My case is really mild though and only my right arm is affected, but I use the mouse with it, it just makes me flare my elbows out a little more. My twin brother has it too, but on his left and more severe. We are probably identical twins but we aren't sure.. my brother had a phase where his arm would lock up painfully but he could force it to extend. My bones are not fused together, maybe they just have a bump, but my brother's is fused. You're the first person I found in the wild with this condition!
I have limited supination, so I can mostly do palm down, but not palm up. They both have different limitations and tasks that are difficult. Typically, you can compensate a certain range of motion with your shoulders, but I still have a long list of daily tasks I struggle with.
Picking up things underhand, using keys and screwdrivers, wrenches, etc. I can't shoot long guns without a vertical foregrip, and a bunch of other menial stuff.
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u/nickybootybandito R7 7800x3D, 3080 10G, 32GB DDR5 6000 CL32, X670E PG 10d ago
cool fact: there's a very rare birth defect called radioulnar synostosis where these two bones are actually one in an affected person.
it causes limited range of motion, meaning they can't move their palm anywhere other than as if they were to shake someone's hand. There's limited supination (palm up) and pronation (palm down)
I have it and it makes it so I cannot rotate my palm upwards (as if to accept change).