All good things

[Naboka]

Looks like my days of speed play are over. All things come to an end.

The doctors are gonna run neurological tests on my right hand/arm to see if they can find/do anything, but it doesn't look like I'll recover the degree of fine motor skills in the middle and index fingers I once had. Visited two hand surgeons now. They're stumped.

Been trying to play boards but end up dumping them because so many words are getting lost to mistyping. Boards I manage to finish have been missing a dozen or more words that I know I typed. Just finished the board below and counted 46 words typed but missed. 46!!! (Maybe more, that's just what I recognized for sure.) Easy words like ren, rean, reans, ene, enes, renes, tene, tenes etc that used to be moneymakers are now unavailable because the n, m, k, h, y, u, i, k keys require functional right index and middle fingers.

Anyone else ever missed 46 + words you played? A bit comedic. But....

Playing just isn't much fun when frustration becomes the norm.

Oh well. Guess I'll just do the long words and weird words and stop dumping boards that I can't retire. Too frustrating getting nothing. Alter the pace from 48 to a 20 wpm. Guess my average points per word will finally go up. But, since I'm just exercising the brain anyways.

Kind of strange considering I go to the gym 4 days a week and haven't lost any strength except in those two fingers. Even doing pullups hasn't been overly affected--it's just a bit more awkward grabbing the bar with 2 fingers on the right instead of 4. .

So, if on the odd chance anyone wonders WTF.

Screen Shot 2025-11-24 at 4.48.47 PM.png

[dannyb]

So sorry to hear that. I'm sure that you have contacted a neurologist. They can't find anything? That is so odd. Be well on this strange journey my friend.

[Emerging]

Yeah, I'm really sorry to hear about that too. Your games are so great to learn from because of your emphasis on points per word. Words like "hentriacontanes"! I enjoy reading your messages too. Just because someone doesn't respond doesn't mean they are uninterested in what you have to say.

Best wishes with your fingers and life in general.

[jbud1980]

I'm sorry to hear that, Naboka. I hope you can resolve the issue and resume play that your are accustomed to. I also lift and exercise often and have noticed some issues with my wrists while playing WordTwist, but not while exercising. Best of luck, and give lalatan a run for his money.

[bwt1213]

Sorry to hear that. Your problems are far worse than mine; with me, I'll just occasionally get a painful cramp/spasm in one or the other hand and I can't type until it passes. Nor does it happen only when I'm typing -- I've had it hit while I'm driving, while turning pages on a book, when getting dressed, etc. So one or the other hand (only once, both) just lock in an odd claw-type posture. I can fix mine by forcing my hand to grip something really tight for a while, and eventually the cramp will pass. The cramps are becoming more frequent, but only rarely affect my game play.

My late wife had migraines her whole life, even as a young child, and got a (free) subscription to a magazine called "Brain and Life". It's devoted to neurological conditions, what is known about them, what can be done for them, new treatments being tried, and so on. There are always stories about people who first discovered they had a condition and what the first symptoms were. Usually the symptoms were odd and the condition was misdiagnosed or not diagnosed at all. In the years I've been reading the magazine, there were two cases where people had trouble with one or two fingers and that was the first symptom, and the original diagnosis was wrong both times. I am not a doctor, didn't attend any medical school, did not see you, and am not diagnosing you. I will only note that the two cases I remember were eventually diagnosed with Parkinson's in one case and MS in the other. I am sure your neurologist has checked/is checking you for both those things. I hope they are both definitively ruled out. I do recommend the magazine.

I can think of a half-dozen other things that would cause your symptoms. I imagine your neurologist has probably thought of, checked, and ruled out ten times as many. I hope a simple treatment is found and you can resume playing (in your expert way) the game you have become so accomplished at.