Conditions and injuries of the finger, hand, wrist, forearm and elbow: what they are, how they behave, and when they stop being minor.
The TFCC is your wrist’s meniscus, and a torn one is the classic missed injury: a “sprain” that still hurts with rotation and pushing at week 3. Most recover without surgery, if the brace-rebuild-reload sequence starts early.
That smooth lump on the back of your wrist is almost certainly a ganglion cyst: trapped joint fluid, not cancer, and about half vanish on their own. Here’s how to tell, when to treat, and why the Bible-smash method needs to die.
Thumb base (CMC) arthritis is the most common hand arthritis: a deep ache that flares with every pinch. It’s about management, not cure, and managed early most thumbs stay functional for years. The alarm isn’t pain level. It’s avoidance.
Tingling ring and little fingers point to the elbow, not the wrist: cubital tunnel syndrome, the funny bone nerve being squeezed by hours of bent elbows. Early, it’s fixed mostly by habit changes. Late, the nerve doesn’t fully come back.
Golfer’s elbow is tennis elbow’s inner-side twin: tendon overload from grip, not golf. Same rules apply: loading beats rest, months not weeks, and pain plus ring-finger tingling means the nerve next door is involved.
Tennis elbow is tendon degeneration, not inflammation, which is why rest and pills disappoint. The fix is months of graded loading. Here’s the honest 6 to 12 month timeline, and why starting early decides which version you get.
De Quervain’s tenosynovitis, the mummy wrist: thumb-side pain that flares when you lift thumbs-up. Splint early and change the lifting technique, and it’s a 4 to 6 week story. Push through it, and it ruins the first year of parenthood.
A broken wrist knits in about 6 weeks. But the outcome is decided in weeks 6 to 12, exactly when most people are discharged with an exercise sheet. Here’s the honest timeline, the red flags, and what good rehab looks like.
The scaphoid is the wrist bone that hides on first X-rays and dies quietly when missed. Fall plus tenderness in the hollow at the thumb base means scaphoid until proven otherwise. Here’s the self-check, the protocol, and why casualness costs wrists.
Most jammed fingers are minor. But four other injuries wear the same costume on day one, and two get permanently worse if ignored. Run the 4-question self-sort: tip straightens, tip bends, finger looks straight, joint never popped out.