Hand tendonitis
It is basically inflammation of the tendon that commonly occurs in our fingers and wrist. When our tendons get irritated or inflamed, we may experience pain, numbness along with swelling, It has been reported that hand tendonitis is commonly associated with rheumatoid arthritis and type 2 diabetes.
Therefore, if you leave the condition untreated, it may cause a rupture of the tendon, and in this case, hand surgery is the only solution to get cured completely.
Now hand tendonitis has become very common among older people. Therefore, you must be aware of its common symptoms. If you notice these kinds of tendonitis symptoms, don’t procrastinate, seek the right medical help to avoid further damage.
In this article, we’re going to talk about five commonly seen symptoms of tendonitis, so that you can understand them properly and get checked up as early as possible.
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Five Common Symptoms of Tendonitis
- Continuous pain
Pain is common in any orthopedic condition like arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, or tendonitis. In the case of tendonitis, you may feel continuous pain whereas in arthritis you’ll feel pain in the morning and night, whereas tendonitis causes persistent pain. Even if pain starts with slight weakness, the intensity of pain will spread from the affected tendon to other parts of the hand. Pain also manifests in the tenderness of your finger and goes up to the fingers and palm. In the early stage of tendonitis, you may notice that pain stops when you’re not moving but pain gets worse while you’re constantly moving.
Untreated tendonitis causes consistent sharp pain. Thus it is apt to take medical help before the condition gets severe.
2. Feeling of sliding
With tendonitis, you may feel your affected joins are sliding against each other. At the initial stage it may feel like nothing serious, but with time it may increase and gives you a scraping and grating feeling. It is a very uncomfortable feeling. If you notice such symptoms that your joints are sliding over each other, then don’t procrastinate, talk to your nearby hand therapist and orthopedic surgeon.
3. Swelling and inflammation
Swelling and inflammation are very common symptoms of hand tendonitis. You may see swelling and accumulation of fluid in the affected area. At the initial stage, the swelling would be very less with no fluid build up. However, over time the swelling may increase, and cause severe pain along with fluid build-up. Consequently, you’ll feel tightness in your hand and wrist.
4. Unable to bend affected finger
It is a very rare symptom of tendonitis. It is more likely to pop up if you’re ignoring these symptoms for several months and not seeking professional help to cure it.
You can say it is a symptom of severity when you won’t bend your fingers. Tendonitis may affect one finger, but if it remains untreated that will affect your entire hand.
The deadly phase of tendonitis makes you unable to bend all of the affected fingers and gradually you’ll lose your hand functionality. In these cases, medication can’t do much, instead, the doctor may suggest an operation to remove the affected area.
5. Numbness
Numbness is more uncommon in hand and wrist tendonitis than arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome. It is a significant way that can help you to differentiate between two hand-associated orthopedic disorders. Carpal tunnel syndrome ( CTS) causes tightening and numbness of pain; the numbness generally develops near the wrist, and bottom of the arm.
On the other hand, in tendonitis, the numbness is usually confined to a particular area ( especially in the affected area). However, the numbness is hard to notice at the initial phase of tendonitis because it won’t be severe as carpal tunnel syndrome ( CTS) or osteoarthritis.
When to seek medical help?
.Some hand pains are nothing to be worried about. Few pains are very normal, often due to overuse of hands. So don’t stress about that.
However, if your pain gets worse over time, and spreads to other parts of your hand, and that impacts your quality of life, then don’t leave them untreated; Instead take the help of an orthopedic surgeon, and explain your problem in detail.
After listening to your experience, the doctor will run some diagnostic tests to define the root cause of your pain. Early-stage tendonitis can be easily treated with medicines and some hand exercises, but if it remains untreated, doctors have to perform surgery to cut off the affected area.
Hand tendonitis treatment includes pain-relief over-the-counter medicines to alleviate and control the pain, and to decrease the inflammation. Apart from that, there will be multiple ways to treat hand and finger tendonitis. But if your tendonitis is not at its early stage then the doctor may recommend surgery. Don’t worry surgery is not going to be highly invasive, after that doctor will advise you to continue rehabilitative care with an especially designed grip strengthening tool. You must continue this exercise to restore hand functionality with finger range of motion.
