Conditions & Injuries

A finger forced sideways tears a collateral ligament. How it is graded, why moving it early matters more than splinting it, and why the swelling lasts a year.

A small cut on the hand can divide a tendon, a nerve and an artery. The four-question check to run before anyone closes it, and the wounds that are emergencies.

Elbow arthritis hurts at the ends of the range, not the middle, and takes your straightening first. Why bone blocks it before cartilage does, and what debridement actually gives back.

A hard, fixed lump on the back of the hand that never changes size is usually a carpal boss, not a ganglion. How to tell them apart, and why most need nothing done.

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.