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Finger Pain/Injury

Common Injuries
Causes
Symptoms
Treatment Options
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What are some common finger injuries?

There are many varieties of finger injuries, from the discrete trauma of an accident to the increasing debility that can arise from a long history of small, accumulating injuries. Fingers, like any bone in the body, can be fractured. They can be sprained. They can be painful because of a condition that develops elsewhere, as is the case when a wrist injury causes symptoms in the fingers.

What are the common causes of the common finger injuries?

Other than those injuries caused by a single identifiable event like a blow to the hand, the causes of many finger injuries are not always obvious. Finger injury often results from long-term use of the fingers to perform repetitive motions that stress the tendons and ligaments of the hand. A wide range of conditions, including trigger finger, mommy thumb and gamekeeper’s thumb, fall into this category of repetitive stress injuries. As people age, the hand and fingers are especially susceptible to arthritic conditions that cause stiffness, pain and deformity, often interfering with the fingers’ ability to function effectively.

What are the symptoms of the common finger injuries?

Finger pain is the symptom most likely to lead people to seek treatment, especially if the pain interferes with the activities of daily living. Finger numbness or tingling can occur with or without pain, as can stiffness and difficulty moving the fingers freely.

Treatment Options

Non-Surgical Treatment Options

Rest is one of the common denominators of non-surgical treatment, whether the injury is the result of a single incident or a series of low-grade injuries that have become problematic over time, and that rest may need to be reinforced by the use of a brace or splint to aid healing and prevent further damage. An arsenal of anti-inflammatory medication, both steroidal and non-steroidal, can be called upon, and physical therapy can be enlisted as an adjunct to other non-surgical treatments.

Surgical Treatment Options

Surgery may not be a treatment of first resort if a non-surgical treatment is equally effective. However, if there are no non-surgical options, if those options are known to be inadequate or if non-surgical treatment has been tried without success, surgery of the hand is a time-tested and highly evolved discipline that can resolve problems that are otherwise intractable.

Modern imaging technologies and surgical techniques have enabled surgeons to target problems with a level of confidence that was never before possible. Refinements in arthroscopic surgery have been a particular boon to surgeons and patients. By combining fiber optics with miniaturized cameras and instruments, surgery is tightly focused on specific internal structures. Healthy surrounding tissues are spared, since the surgeon needs only tiny incisions to get to the problem. Outcomes are more predictable and more positive and, at the same time, recovery is accelerated.