thumb tendonitis or de quervain's tendonitis - know for sure
Tom Beartoes
What would we do if we lost use of our hands? Wow, what a hard time we would have. Even trying to things left handed (if you are a righty) is difficult. I know this when I hurt my right hand and could not use it. So protecting our hands is of utmost importance. Doing our job, when our fingers or hands have been damaged can be very difficult and makes things tough to perform our everyday tasks.
Hurting your hands and fingers can happen in a number of different ways. So when we end up with a health injury like thumb tendinitis or Dequervains tendonitis, this can have an impact on how we perform daily.
What is Tendonitis of the Thumb
Here is some basic information on what is tendonitis in the thumb. This will happen when there is an irritation or swelling of the tendons of the hand. This happens with the tendons along the side of the wrist on the thumb side.
When you have this irritation, the compartment that surrounds the tendon swells. Then the compartment changes shape and the tendon can't move in the compartment the way it should. You are going to feel pain and tenderness in the wrist when you go to make a fist, grab or pinch something or when you turn the wrist.
Thumb tendonitis and a repetitive motion injury
Tasks that require some type of repetitive movements can turn out to be a big problem. You can end up with many different types of problems. Some of them are having severe pain in the hand, you can injure the nerves that run to the hand and wrist (carpal tunnel syndrome). You may even start to have your fingers start to lock or even click (trigger finger) and you can also have severe pain in the thumb.
How do you know you have thumb tendonitis? Some signs and symptoms.
The first thing that will alert you is the pain on the thumb side of the wrist. This can happen gradually, but sometimes, one day it can be there. You can almost think that you have arthritis or some type of arthritic pain. This pain can start in the wrist and travel all the way up the forearm.
The pain is worse when you grasp something or when you twist the wrist. You may see swelling on the thumb side of the wrist. You may on occasion feel a "catching" or "snapping" when you move the thumb. There can be numbness on the back of the thumb and in the index finger.
Things to do
When you start to feel the above symptoms, one of the first things that you can do is start to ice the area. Do this in short 15 minute intervals. You can use a brace or a thumb splint to help prevent movement and for support. The main thing to do is to rest the finger and rest, and stop doing the repetitive movements that caused the problem in the first place. Use some type of anti-inflammatory medicine to reduce the inflammation.
An effective treatment of De Quervain's tendonitis or tendinitis in thumb is that your doctor may prescribe is a cortisone injection around the tendon to help decrease the swelling and provide pain relief.
If these do not help, then surgery may be necessary. This surgery would be come necessary if the pain continues or if it recurs. Surgical treatment is curative. It is a day surgery, with a small incision and then a splint for 10 days. The splint or braces can be used until the sutures are removed.
How to tell if you have Thumb Tendonitis For Sure
Here is a procedure to tell if you have thumb tendonitis or DeQuervain's. It is called Finkelstein test.
* The patient makes a fist, with the fingers over the thumb
* What you want to do next is bend the wrist in the direction of the little finger.
* If you are suffering from thumb tendinitis, the person is going to find this very painful. You are also going to find tenderness to the touch directly over the thumb side of the wrist.
2 steps and you will know if you have or possibly have thumb tendonitis.
This is a quick way of finding out if you have
http://www.tendonitistypes.com/tendonitis-of-the-thumb.html Thumb Tendonitis but you require more information on this and
http://www.tendonitistypes.com/ DeQuervain's Tendonitis and our website will show you this.
