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As we all know, our hands are used constantly all day long for almost everything that we do. If we injure our fingers or hands, this could impact how we perform our daily tasks at work, home and play.

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.

Do I have Tendonitis of the thumb? What is it?

Let’s talk a minute about tendonitis in the thumb. Sometimes this can happen when you have an irritation or swelling of the hand tendons. Usually this will happen on the thumb side of the wrist.

What happens is the irritation that you have causes the compartment that the tendon runs in to swell. The shape of the compartment changes. The tendon can’t move as it should in this compartment. Pain and tenderness occurs along the thumb side of the wrist. This pain can be felt if you go to grasp something, make a fist or by turning the wrist.

How does repetitive motion injury effect thumb tendonitis

If you have a job or some task that you have to use a repetitive motion, can cause this problem. This repeated movement over the years will or can cause pain in the hand, possibly injured nerves (carpal tunnel syndrome), you can have locking fingers (trigger finger) and loss of movement or pain that effects the thumb.

How do you know you have thumb tendonitis? Some signs and symptoms.

Pain on the thumb side of the wrist is the main symptom. This pain may appear gradually or even suddenly. This may even seem like an arthritic pain. The pain is felt in the wrist, but can travel up the forearm.

You can feel a severe pain when you go and grab something or when you are twisting your wrist. Swelling will probably be obvious in the thumb area. A catching or locking of the fingers including the thumb may start to happen. You may start to feel a numbness on the index finger and the back of the thumb.

Things to do

An initial treatment when you start to feel the symptoms is to rest the thumb. Stop doing and moving the injured area. You can start to ice the thumb in 15 minute intervals. Take some over the counter anti-inflammatory medication. Use a thumb splint or brace to reduce the movement and help to support it.

Your doctor at a last resort may require you to have a cortisone injection into the effected area. This will help with the swelling that happens with thumb tendonitis or even De Quervain’s tendonitis. This is going to help to reduce the swelling and provide you some pain relief.

The last straw if the other treatments don’t provide relief is surgery. You would do this if the pain is constant or constantly recurring. Surgical treatments do work well and can cure the problem. You are in and out, day surgery and then you wear a splint for several day to brace the treated area or until the stitches are removed.

A way to tell if you are suffering from thumb tendonitis

The Finkelstein test can be performed to tell if you have thumb tendonitis or Dequervain’s tendonitis. The following is the procedure to check for these problems.

* The patient makes a fist, with the fingers over the thumb

* The wrist is then bent 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.

Now you know how to see if you are really suffering from thumb tendonitis. Two steps and you know for sure.