Been noticing my hands were getting stiffer over the last year or two. Thought the stiffness was the muscles because it’s mostly when I close them. The last few months I’ve developed what seems to be arthritis in the index and middle finger of my right hand. It started after I cut the top of my hand just above the knuckle on my index finger. Now straightening my index finger, closing it and closing the middle finger on my right hand have been painful, and bumping top of the right hand is pretty bad. Kind of sucks because after working on things my hands can be really sore.
My wife has been dealing with rheumatoid arthritis for about 8 years, and I never knew how sore it can be. I don’t want to be taking pain meds, and I don’t want to take the prescription stuff she is on.
Are any of you dealing with arthritis in your hands? If so, what do you do about it?
Been dealing with it for years. Keeps me up all night. Just got blood work last week and the indicators are off the chart. I have a doc appt next month. If there is anything learned, I’ll let you know.
Go witth 70% DMSO or even a bit under. The 99% stuff is more likely ot cause skin irritation and the more dilute works just fine for driving medication deep into the tissues. Also DMSO in itself is quite anti-inflammatory.
Rheumatiod arthritis often responds very well to the right change in diet. Top suspects are gluten, dairy, refined carbs, (bread, pasta, chips, etc), and added sugars (fruit is excellent, fruit juice is more like drinking a soda). Depending on the individual, some (many?) need to mostly give up all animal products.
To a lesser extent, osteoarthritis often responds to same diet changes. I had it pretty bad in my knees some years ago. Went with Dr Joel Fuhrman’s diet and it gradually just faded away. (I’m 70 and pretty spry for an old fart though of course not like when I was 20 or even 40!)
Thanks, I’ll see if I can get some DMSO locally. My wife’s friend gave her a CBD/THC cream and it works, but being a THC product, I’d need to be registered for medical marijuana to get more. Looking at that option as well.
I went online to see what was available and there are a lot of animal feed stores that have it. I’m looking at getting the roll on version, it might be an easier and cleaner way to dispense it.
Will try to comment later via pc…typing on phone is a greek tragedy…loads of injury exp due to combat sports (BJJ, kickboxing/striking) and fielding the consequencea daily. What stands out to me in yr initial posts is the cut/injury. Most of us over 50 are very lucky if the injury cause might be something like a cut, or soft tissue damage from an event rather than more generalized arthritis or an age related (normal…cringe) situation
I’m getting surgery next week for my hand. Same thing happened to me, fingers hit the table saw about 6 years ago and nerves were severed so middle and index has been numb since then. In doing a lot of work on planers, I didn’t realize that I was overworking the hand since the main fingers were numb. Then I couldn’t grip anything, numbness started spreading, pain, wrist was sore, etc. Had tests done and the opinion was swollen nerves were being constricted in a bone passageway in the wrist. Numbness in the middle finger is a telltail sign. They’re going to do more than the usual carpal tunnel procedure on me, but get it checked since there’s probably a correlation with the cut you had. Arthritic pain is felt deep in the bones, so it’s difficult to treat with topical stuff. If accupuncture works for you (does for me but not everyone), they can address the whole problem whether arthritic or something else. Go with the very fine Japanese needles, not the sewing ones in traditional Chinese accupuncture. In any case, take care of it now. I’ve been compensating with my left hand for months, so it’s been working at 150% and probably the same thing will need to be done on that one.
Important note about DMSO use–EVERYthing on your skin where you apply it will be carried directly into your body and blood stream so be sure to clean the area well every time, before applying!
I think I cut into the tendon a little. It was pretty deep and I should have gotten stitches, but I figured it would heal. I splinted the index finger a day or two to keep the cut from opening. I noticed that doing that made it very stiff when I took the splint off. The knuckle is noticeably larger now.
I’ve cut individual fingers similar but not as severe to Pete C’s image below, and my doctor told me that was going to get arthritis later. I think that’s why the left hand is stiffer, the cuts were always on the palm side of my left hand fingers.
Shark country,I’ve been in the operating theatres for 20 years and it’s unusual for anyone to have arthritis from a superficial cut or to have it develop so quickly and expand the joint. That would account for the swelling and stiffness. You could have nicked or separated the tendon but that would have meant that your finger would hang or be hard to open/close.
You sure it’s not infected ? There’s a chance you have an infected joint that can simmer for ages and then go bad quickly. If you have a blood test , they’ll look for white cell count and that should Rule in or out an infection.
My wife also has RA - it is a serious autoimmmune disease that can manifest in many different ways. I have osteoarthritis in lots of joints and disc degeneration - completely different beast to RA. You need a proper diagnosis. As Surffoils indicated, your problem may be due to something else. Secondly, when I first got back problems in 2003-2004 I didn’t take any pain relief. A big mistake. Pain is related to inflammation and inflammation can trigger pain responses, so you can get a vicious circle. If you have inflammation /muscle spasm- you need to reduce it. Medication needs to be used carefully. Heat, massage and acupuncture can all be helpful. Diagnosis is the starting point, then good advice. Then learn what aggravates things and how you can work around the pain etc.While pain is a warning system, it can also become overstimulated as a response to physical activity.
and this is what happenned when I complained about my left knee in 2018
they said the spurring in under the knee cap and they can’t take it out or treat it although they stuck a big needle and shot it foll of cortizone but that Kaiser. That’s wehy I use a cane now when I got to work carry my heavy shoulder bag. I should use a wheely but my new job has stairs in stead of an elevator.
Of course because of the meniscus damage to the left I was supposed to have that replaced when I got my right one replaced years ago but Kaiser stopped doing double knee replacemenrs and that was a healish revovery
DMSO is horse linament it was used in the 70s-80s as a cure but then dropped out of site
But none of this compares to our heart issues, you should be happy you’re surfing that its your joints hurting and not your heart clogging again as you don’t have another option after bypass,
XR LEFT KNEE AP LAT OBL AND PATELLAR OR TUNNEL, 4 VIEWS performed on: 4/18/2018 11:17 AM
IMPRESSION: Moderate tricompartmental degenerative spurring with probable mild narrowing of the medial compartment and no evidence of joint effusion, bony lesions or abnormal soft tissue calcifications
To be clear about this, my wife has RA, but I haven’t seen my doctor for my hands, yet. My main concern is there doesn’t seem to be much they can do for osteoarthritis, and I am not happy with the things wife wife has to take.
Surffoils, on my left hand, I’ve messed up my ring and index fingers from falls. Must have broken the tendon on the ring finger because it had the hanging tip when it got better. I went in for that injury and had to re-splint it for a long time to get the tip workinh right again. Index finger healed up ok.
My personal experience, and there’s research out there that backs it up, is that diet has huge effect on both blood lipids (artery blockage) and arthritis of all kinds. The specifics will vary a bit between individuals but the essence is that certain foods tend to be quite inflammatory for most people (specific other foods may also be for certain individuals). My favorite source for info currently is Dr Joel Fuhrman, MD. See his books Super Immunity and The End Of Heart Disease. His site has a lot of info on it but you have to pay to get to any of it.
I had cholesterol around 260 and after diet change it now runs about 150 with LDL of 70-80 and the real bugger Lipo-A of 7 mg/dl (the lower the better on that last one). I also had bad enough arthritis in my knees that it hurt to step off a curb to cross the street. There’s a small residual rough spot on front medial edge of left femur at the knee, but I can run a bit (slowly) and otherwise zero pain. I can even squat all the way down Asian style and hang out there.
