The fingers of the upper extremities play an important role in human life, helping you to carry out delicate work at home or during the birthing process. But inflammatory processes in fine joints also occur frequently, especially in old age, and then movement becomes difficult, painful, and the phalanges of the fingers are so bent that they disfigure the hand.
If finger joints ache, causes and treatment are closely related. Let's consider them in more detail.
Fingers hurt - the cause of discomfort
Pain and swelling in the area of the finger joints can be caused by several reasons:
- All types of arthritis usually affect the phalanges of the fingers. So not only the bones become inflamed, but the tissues adjacent to them. The pain syndrome intensifies not only after physical exertion, but also after a night's rest. The mobility of the phalanges is limited, its shape changes, redness in the joint region is visible. In rheumatoid arthritis, the phalanges of the fingers, like the middle and index fingers, swell and become inflamed. First, the joint hurts, for example, on the right, then on the left. At the same time, discomfort in the right and left hand does not appear;
- Psoriatic arthritis is characterized by dysfunction of all the joints, they stretch, they turn red. If the process is caused by infection of the joint components with viruses of various types, then a sharp rise in body temperature is added to the signs of local significance, accompanied by subsequent intoxication of the body. In children, symptoms of infectious arthritis are more pronounced than in adults;
- In stenosing ligamentitis, the main symptoms, in addition to nocturnal pain, are numbness. Almost all the joints of the fingers of the upper extremities swell, the right and left hands suffer. There is no swelling just in the little finger area;
- When the destruction of cartilage tissue, osteoarthritis, begins, painful sensations appear after physical work, decreasing at night. In this case, first a joint may be damaged, then gradually the pain covers all the phalanges of the hands. Sometimes the disease captures the joint base of the thumb, which then begins to deform, capturing the metacarpal bone;
- Severe pain is a sign of the development of osteomyelitis, manifested by the formation of a purulent-necrotic process;
- Traumatic pathologies lead to inflammation of the joint capsules, the accumulation of excess synovial fluid in them. The affected area turns dark red, you cannot touch it, because the knuckles of the fingers are immediately pierced by a sharp pain;
- Sometimes the pathology only manifests on the fingertips. Ulnar nerve neuropathies are manifested by painful sensations in the left hand, the fingertips become numb and white. This is due to the fact that blood circulation is impaired at the fingertips, they do not receive adequate nutrition;
- Upper extremity hypothermia responds with unbearable joint pain accompanied by cyanosis or intense redness of the affected area;
- With inflammation of the ligament of the thumb, de Quervain's disease, any movement of the hand causes a painful attack;
- Frequent injuries to the upper extremities include dislocations, accompanied by acute pain;
- People who spend a lot of time at a computer keyboard tend to pinch the nerve in their wrist, which is reflected in painful pain. In addition, professional pathologies include vibratory diseases, whose signs are numbness of the fingers, crises of painful sensations.
The reasons listed indicate that the finger joints of the upper extremities are most affected by any inflammatory diseases of a viral or traumatic nature.
How to help your fingers get hurt
There are several methods of treating hand joints, all of which are effective in combination.
Medical procedures will reduce pain
Best of all, painful processes are removed by a variety of medical procedures.
Regular massage helps improve peripheral blood circulation when hand joints receive adequate nutrition and oxygen. During a stroking, rubbing, kneading, shaking session, you can do the procedure with one finger or all at once.
Microwave therapy, when exposed to ultra-high frequency electromagnetic fields, creates conditions for the expansion of blood vessels, normalization of the passage of nerve impulses and reduction of smooth muscle spasms. The effectiveness of the procedure is associated with its anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antispasmodic effects. Local barotherapy is performed with equipment that creates high or low pressure. Typically, this procedure is used to treat bone pathologies associated with neurological diseases, when other methods do not help.
To improve metabolic processes, eliminate pain, electrophoresis can be performed, where the necessary medication is injected into the joints of the hands using the force of the current.
Medicines are the mainstay of therapy when your fingers hurt
Still, the use of pharmaceutical preparations in the treatment of joint diseases cannot be dispensed with:
- Nonsteroidal medications help to relieve swelling and reduce pain;
- If the disease is caused by a malfunctioning immune system, potent drugs from the prednisolone group are needed;
- Ointments with a local anesthetic effect are useful to relieve unpleasant symptoms with mild inflammation;
- Chondroprotective drugs restore the working function of the joints.
It is possible to eliminate some of the causes of joint pathologies with just antibiotics, cytostatics, hormones, for rheumatoid arthritis, hypouricemic agents that remove excess uric acid salts for gout, psoriasis.
Traditional medicine recipes will save you from pain
The main methods for relieving joint pain, developed by traditional healers, are associated with applying compresses, rubbing the affected area.
- Sea or table salt heated in a skillet, used as compresses for aching joints, will gradually soothe them. Applying it daily, alternating with fir oil rubbing for a week, will make you healthy.
- The sick bone compresses of an infusion of burdock leaves, as well as a decoction of absinthe, are applied for fifteen to twenty minutes. A burdock leaf applied to the joints will alleviate discomfort.
- Grated onion porridge is effectively used to treat joint ailments with compresses. The cabbage leaf also has a beneficial effect, it strengthens the musculoskeletal system components.
- Effective treatment - rubbing the affected area with apple cider vinegar, diluted in half with water, will give a positive result in a month.
- A solution prepared in advance of twenty grams of celandine, a liter of oil, infused for two weeks, is rubbed in with massage movements in the morning and at night.
- The same amount of honey, glycerin, alcohol, iodine is well mixed, rubbed with this mixture of diseased areas. The positive result will be felt within a week.
The systematic implementation of therapeutic measures will help make your fingers healthy and healthy.
Recommendations for the prevention of joint pain
- The organization of proper nutrition can save from pathologies of the skeletal system. For this, it is necessary to limit the use of sweet smoked foods, flour, dairy products with a high fat content, salty and spicy foods. Eating seafood, vegetables, especially cauliflower, radish, lettuce, in addition to consuming pomegranate, fig, ginger, adding olive oil, flaxseed oil, can improve the state of bones, remove excess salts, toxins from the body.
- The joints need rest, a variety of light work, most often to do gymnastics for them. Working on the computer, you need to knead, shake brushes every half hour to improve blood microcirculation.
- When working with vibrating instruments, it is necessary to protect the hands from the extremities with gloves that support them well.
Taking care of your hands, preventing hypothermia, preventing pain.