Why Does My Hand Hurt? 5 Causes of Hand & Wrist Pain
Hand pain is a traumatic injury that develops from accidents or any other external and internal hemorrhage. Through it is a reversible condition. Orthopaedic treats it by medications, exercise, and surgeries to reduce the symptoms.
Hand pain promotes wrist pain often caused by fractures or sprains from injuries. However, repetitive stress, arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome also promotes long-term hand and wrist pain.
There are so many factors available for hand and wrist pain. In this article, we will talk about five main reasons for hand pain and wrist pain individually. For proper treatment and healing, you need an accurate diagnosis.
Five causes of hand pain
De Quervain’s tendinosis
The medical term is De Quervain’s tendinosis. It causes pain at the thumb side of the wrist. The pain starts gradually or suddenly. The pain travels from the thumb and goes up to the forearm. If you are suffering from Quervain’s tendinitis, you may feel the pain while holding objects and turning your wrist.
The pain causes inflammation and irritation. Thus to ease the pain, you need to keep your hand at rest—otherwise, repetitive activities and excessive use worsen de Quervain’s syndrome.
Carpal Tunnel syndrome
It is a widespread nerve complication of the hand. This condition leads to pain in the wrist, forearm, palm, and fingers of the hand. Generally, pains get at a severe level at night instead of the day. Carpal tunnel syndrome causes numbness, tingling, and weakness. Numbness is especially generated in your thumb, middle finger, and index finger. The pain makes it difficult to grip objects.
Fractures
Bone fractures cause severe hand pain. Apart from pain, you may feel stiffness, swelling, loss of movement. If your finger gets fractured, you may not be able to move your hand completely. Your fractured finger could be inflamed and looks shorter than usual.
There is three kinds of fractures:
Simple: Broken bone stable and aligned
Complex: The fracture may cause the bone to shift/be displaced with making the treatment difficult
Comminuted: When bone fractures in more than a single place
Compound: Broken bone fractures through the skin
Arthritis
This is the main wellspring of hand pain. It makes joints fragile the ligament that permits them to move flawlessly against one another. As the ligament crumbles, excruciating, pain extremely, swelling starts to happen.
On the other hand, the regions where this regularly happens are the following:
Osteoarthritis: It is the widespread form of arthritis that causes increasing decadence of cartilage. It can happen with increasing age or a result of an old injury, such as bone disposition or bone fracture. When it affects the hand, it causes swelling, pain, stiffness,
Trigger Finger
The medical term is stenosing tenosynovitis. The prior symptom is to lock the thumb at a bent position. It is very much excruciating, especially when you straighten or bend the affected thumb or finger. The situation develops while the flexor tendons regulate the finger and thumb’s movement and get irritated.
Cause of wrist pain
Traumatic injury
Traumatic injury causes immense wrist pain
There is two kinds of impact:
Sudden impacts: wrist injuries often occur when you fall forward onto the outstretched hand, which causes strains, sprains, and even fractures. A scaphoid fracture deals with a bone on the thumb side of the wrist. This kind of fracture may not be seen on X-ray immediately after an accident.
Repetitive Stress: Any activity which involves repetitive stress on the wrist causes immense pain. When you hit a tennis ball or drive a car, you put stress on the wrist, which causes inflammation around the wrist joint, which causes stress fractures, especially when you perform the hand movement for a more extended period without taking a break.
Arthritis
Osteoarthritis is a widespread form of arthritis that develops when the cartilage cushions the bones’ end deteriorates gradually. Osteoarthritis in the wrist is a rare case, usually developing in individuals who got injured in the past.
Rheumatoid Arthritis is an autoimmune disorder where the body’s immune system kills its tissue and bone. Rheumatoid arthritis commonly develops in the wrist. Generally, both of the wrists get affected by rheumatoid arthritis.
Carpal tunnel syndrome
Elevated pressure on the median nerves causes Carpal tunnel syndrome, which promotes intense wrist pain.
Ganglion Cysts.
These delicate tissue cysts frequently happen concerning your wrist opposite to your palm. A ganglion cyst might be excruciating, and pain may either deteriorate or improve with movement.
Kienbock’s disease: This disorder develops in young adults which involves the progressive collapse of the small bones of the wrist. Kienbock’s syndrome develops when blood supply to the bone gets inhibited.
Risk factors:
Wrist pain is a common problem and can happen to anybody irrespective of their jobs (sedentary or very active). Still, the risk may develop if you are a sports person, do repetitive stress complete job which puts pressure on wrist and hands. Even certain disease like diabetes, obesity, pregnancy, rheumatoid arthritis increases the risk of severe hand and wrist pain because this activity develops Carpal tunnel syndrome
Hand pains gradually weaken your grip strength. First, you need proper diagnosis and treatment of hand and wrist pain, then you have to increase hand strength by using a grip strengthener.