Conditions and injuries of the finger, hand, wrist, forearm and elbow: what they are, how they behave, and when they stop being minor.
Needle release recovery takes days; open Dupuytren’s surgery takes about 3 months, with a night splint and hand therapy. Neither cures the disease, and the middle finger joint decides your result more than the operation does.
A scapholunate ligament tear often follows a fall, shows a normal X-ray and gets called a sprain. Back-of-wrist pain, a click and weakness still there at 6 weeks need proper imaging: six weeks buys a repair, six months a reconstruction, six years a fusion.
Guyon’s canal syndrome is the ulnar nerve squeezed at the wrist: numb ring and little fingers with a normal back of the hand. Pressure cases usually settle in 6 to 12 weeks once the load comes off; a cyst or hamate fracture needs finding and usually surgery.
Rheumatoid arthritis in the hands shows up as morning stiffness over an hour, soft swelling of the big knuckles, middle joints and wrists on both sides, and feeling unwell. Early treatment protects the joints; late treatment can’t rebuild them.
Expect about 12 weeks before a repaired flexor tendon handles real gripping, and 3 to 6 months to near-full use. The splint stays on full-time for about 6 weeks, and the repair is weakest around week 3, exactly when the hand starts feeling fine.
Boutonnière deformity is a torn central slip at the middle knuckle. Caught early, it’s a splint holding the middle joint straight full time for about 6 weeks, plus fingertip exercises, with most people back to normal use by around 3 months.
After a simple elbow dislocation, most people move the elbow within a week, return to light use around 6 weeks and near full function by 3 months. The real risk is stiffness: weeks in a sling cost range you don’t get back.
CRPS is pain that escalates after a hand or wrist injury instead of settling, with swelling, color and temperature changes and fast-building stiffness. It’s real, most people improve over months, and the hand has to keep moving while it hurts.
Yes, a stiff hand after a cast or surgery can usually be fixed, and most of the gain comes in the first 3 months. Here’s the timeline, the two self-tests, the exercises with reps, and why time at end range beats pulling harder.
About 3 months for everyday life, 6 to 12 months for full strength. A hand therapist’s week-by-week trapeziectomy recovery: splint, pain, driving, work, and why pinch feels weaker at month 3.