Hand Therapist Nigel Chua Weeks after a wrist fracture, the thumb stops lifting off the table. Why undisplaced fractures cause it more often, the test that catches it, and the warning phase you can still act in.
Little-finger-side wrist pain with no injury behind it is often ulnar impaction — an ulna a few millimeters too long. Why the load doubles, and what actually fixes it.
Boxer’s knuckle: the extensor tendon slips off the knuckle because a small sling tore. The ten-second test that identifies it, and the three-week window that decides the treatment.
A hand scar that sticks down costs you movement, not looks. What to do from week two, why the first six months decide it, and what still works after.
Fingers that go white then blue then red in the cold. Why it happens, how to tell harmless Raynaud’s from the kind that signals something else, and what actually works.
Swan neck deformity is a middle joint that hyperextends and a fingertip that drops. Four different causes, four different fixes — and why treating the shape without the cause fails.
Numb, burning hands in the third trimester are usually pregnancy-related carpal tunnel. Why it happens, what is safe to do, and the twelve-month mark that changes the plan.
Trigger thumb is the same pulley problem as trigger finger, in a joint that behaves differently. Why it locks bent, what the window is, and what actually reopens it.
Wrist arthroscopy leaves two tiny scars and hides two very different recoveries. A debridement takes weeks; a TFCC repair takes months, and the movement that has to be locked down is forearm rotation rather than wrist bending.
A small operation with two under-discussed parts: ganglions can recur because the stalk back to the joint is the real target, and the scar on the back of the wrist can leave you stiffer than the lump ever did.