Conditions and injuries of the finger, hand, wrist, forearm and elbow: what they are, how they behave, and when they stop being minor.
Flexor repairs fail loudly by rupturing. Extensor repairs fail quietly, as a lag: the finger bends fine and just stops straightening all the way. A few millimeters of tendon length become permanent degrees. Here’s the weekly check that catches it.
No Dupuytren’s treatment cures the disease. Needle release buys a fast recovery and a shorter reprieve; open surgery costs months and buys longer. And the joint that’s bent decides your result more than the operation does.
The scapholunate ligament tears in a fall, the X-ray looks normal, and it gets called a wrist sprain. Untreated it has a known ending: predictable wrist arthritis about a decade later. Six weeks buys a repair, six months a reconstruction, six years a fusion.
The ulnar nerve gets squeezed at the elbow and at the wrist, with near-identical symptoms. Check the back of your hand: normal there means the wrist. And unlike carpal or cubital tunnel, Guyon’s canal usually has a specific findable cause, often a cyst or a missed hamate fracture.
Rheumatoid arthritis is your immune system attacking your joint linings, not wear and tear. Morning stiffness over an hour, big knuckles and wrists, both hands, feeling unwell. Early medication protects the joints; late medication can’t rebuild them.
Flexor tendon repair rehab sits between two failures: move it too little and the tendon glues to its sheath, too hard and the repair ruptures. The repair is weakest around week 3, which is exactly when the hand starts feeling fine. Here’s why every rule exists.
Boutonnière deformity is the central slip tearing off the middle knuckle. On day one the finger looks almost normal, and the deformity develops over the next one to three weeks while it’s being treated as a jam. Here’s the test that catches it before it bends.
The elbow stiffens faster than any other joint in the body. After a dislocation the X-ray looks fine and everyone relaxes, but weeks in a sling cost range you don’t get back. Bending returns easily; straightening is the year-long project.
CRPS is the body’s injury response failing to switch off: burning pain out of proportion to the injury, color and temperature changes, swelling, and fast-increasing stiffness. It’s real, most people improve, and the hand has to keep moving while it hurts.
A stiff hand after a cast or surgery is normal, but stiffness has a clock. Early stiffness is wet cement, old stiffness is set concrete. Here’s how to tell whether the block is joint, tendon or the small muscles inside your hand, and why time at end range beats pulling harder.