Conditions and injuries of the finger, hand, wrist, forearm and elbow: what they are, how they behave, and when they stop being minor.
A screw holds a scaphoid still but can’t supply blood, which is why this bone heals slowly and unreliably. Union is confirmed on CT, not X-ray, and that distinction decides when you can safely load the wrist.
A few centimeters of incision and a four to six month recovery. Tennis elbow surgery removes degenerate tendon; rebuilding good tendon is still done by loading it, which is why the rehab looks like the treatment you had before surgery.
First-hour steps for an amputated finger, including the two mistakes that make reattachment impossible. Plus why surgeons sometimes advise against replanting, and why many fingertip wounds heal best if left alone.
A chip off the front edge of the finger’s middle joint leaves it sliding backwards out of position, and it destroys the joint within months. It only shows on a true side-on X-ray of that one finger.
A fracture at the very base of the thumb runs into the joint and has a muscle pulling it out of place, which is why it usually needs fixing rather than casting. The goal is a smooth joint surface, not just a healed bone.
A fingertip crushed in a door or under a hammer. The tuft fracture heals on its own; the nail bed underneath is the part with a deadline, and whether the nail is split or lifted is what decides it.
The check that matters after a broken finger isn’t on the X-ray. Make a loose fist: if a finger crosses over its neighbor, the bone is rotated, and rotation is the one deformity a finger can’t work around.
Sore and swollen four to eight centimeters above the wrist on the back of the forearm, sometimes with a squeak you can feel. Routinely mistaken for De Quervain’s, and separated from it by location alone.
Little-finger side wrist pain that sits on the surface rather than deep in the joint, and sometimes snaps when you turn your palm up. Caught fresh, the snapping version is treated in a cast. Left late, it needs surgery.
A small wrist bone losing its blood supply and collapsing, usually in a younger manual worker with no injury to explain it. Early X-rays are normal, which is exactly the problem.