Conditions and injuries of the finger, hand, wrist, forearm and elbow: what they are, how they behave, and when they stop being minor.
Adult forearm fractures are plated because the forearm is a rotating joint, and a bone healing slightly the wrong shape costs you rotation permanently. Plus the two single-bone fractures that hide a dislocation at the other end.
Forearms that pump up and stop working. The timing separates the causes: pain that arrives at a predictable point and clears minutes after stopping is a compartment pattern, and it has a real diagnosis behind it.
Bacteria inside the flexor tendon sheath is one of the few true emergencies in the hand. Kanavel’s four signs identify it in under a minute, and the wound that let it in is often too small to remember.
Two common finger infections that get confused. Paronychia sits at the nail fold and often settles early. A felon sits in the fingertip pad, builds pressure in a closed compartment, and needs draining before it reaches bone.
Gout in the fingers arrives overnight, peaks in a day, and looks identical to a joint infection. It also has two separate treatments that people constantly confuse: one ends the attack, the other ends the disease.
The dog bite that looks terrible is usually the least dangerous. A cat’s puncture and a small split over a knuckle from someone’s tooth are the two that reach joints and tendons, seal bacteria in, and cost people fingers.
Numb hands on the bike are nerve compression at the wrist, and which fingers go numb tells you which nerve. The fix is usually load, position and padding. The deadline is numbness that no longer clears after you get off.
Deep pain in the heel of the palm after a golf, bat or racquet impact, with a normal X-ray. Standard wrist films miss this fracture routinely, and the untreated version sits on a nerve and saws at a tendon.
An audible pop on a crimp, pain at the base of the ring finger, and a decision about crimping that will shape the next six months. Grades, timelines, and the bowstringing sign that changes everything.
A soft, fluid swelling on the tip of the elbow that often barely hurts. Usually harmless and self-limiting. The one thing that has to be ruled out first is infection, and four signs separate them.