WristHasung Seoul Orthopedic Clinic
Trigger finger
Trigger finger
Trigger finger is a condition in
which one of your fingers gets stuck in a bent position.
Your finger may bend or straighten with a snap
— like a trigger being pulled and released.
When you clench and open your fist after waking up in the morning, and all the other fingers are stretched but only one finger is not opened and is bent at 90º, or if you have pain in the palm of carpometacarpal joint and you feel a bulging inflammation in your palms, you may have what we call Trigger finger.
Trigger finger
What causes of Trigger finger?
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The exact cause of the disease has not yet been identified, but it tends to occur after a lot of repetitive work on the palm of the hand.
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It most frequently occurs in middle age or older women.
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Diabete is the most relevant disease, and rheumatoid arthritis and amyloidosis are also related to Trigger finger.
Trigger finger
How to treat it?
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Step 1
Anti-inflammatory / Physical therapy
First, you need to be treated anti-inflammatory medicine in conjunction with physical therapy for about 2 weeks. In this case, your pain may be relieved or reduced but it's not easy to recover completely.
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Step 2
Tendon sheath steroid injections
If your symptoms are not improved, you need to be treated Tendon sheath steroid injection.
This has no side effects and is easy to treat, so more than 90% of people are improved in the short term.
However, when your pain continues to recurs, you may receive repeated treatments but it is not advised to get the injections more than 3 or 4 times as it may cause side effects. Therefore, if the recurrence persists, you should consider the surgery treatment. -
Step 3
Surgical Treatment
Surgical treatment consists of cutting the tendon sheath in the palm of the metacarpophalangeal joint to remove the thickened flexor cover. At this time, if the finger nerve is damaged, the patient's finger will lose sensation, so careful surgical procedure should be taken.