Well I saw the hand man this afternoon and have come home feeling somewhat shell-shocked.
After moving my thumb joint in all sorts of directions that it didn't want to go and then sending me for an x-ray, his diagnosis was that there is some arthritis in the joint but that isn't the main problem. It's rather that the ligaments have stretched and so are no longer holding the joint in position. He said that the only treatment for this is to have the thumb joint fused, but his advice was for this not to happen yet, but to see how it goes.
So for now I go on living with the pain and weakness, but he did say I could be referred back to him at anytime - be it 6 months, 5 years or never. Not quite what I was hoping for but do I really want a thumb fusion? Tonight I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Linda x