Don’t Suffer in Silence When You Experience Hand Pain

Kayal Orthopaedic Center Provides Expert Diagnosis, Treatment

It can happen in a flash. One second you’re walking across a snow-covered sidewalk, parking lot or street. The next you’re holding out your hand to brace yourself as you slip and crash to the ground. Unfortunately, your effort to protect yourself has resulted in a strain, sprain or broken bone in your hand. You’re not alone. The winter season is one of the worst times for hand injuries, largely due to slips and falls.

At Kayal Orthopaedic Center, we urge you to take every precaution possible and be safe out there. Thankfully, spring is on its way and the risk of outdoor slips and falls will decrease. But winter isn’t over just yet and often lets out its last gasp (or two or three) during March. We certainly don’t want to see you coming through our doors with injuries due to slips or falls, but we want you to be assured that our award-winning team of elite surgeons is here for you when you need us for hand and/or wrist surgery in Bergen County, NJ, and beyond.

Most of us take our hands for granted—until sprains, strains, broken bones, crippling arthritis or some other problem restricts our mobility and prevents us from carrying out our day-to-day tasks. Your hand is a complex structure with many moving parts. It’s made up of 27 bones, 17 muscles, 29 joints, 48 nerves and 120 ligaments. In addition, there are muscles in your forearms that control your fingers along with the tendons attached to them. So, there are many moving parts of your hand that are vulnerable to injury. Here are just some of the common orthopaedic injuries and problems that can occur:

1. Fractures: One of the most common ways to break bones in your hand or fingers is when you stretch out your arm to brace yourself from a fall. Sometimes, it’s obvious that you’ve fractured a bone. You experience intense pain, severe swelling and might see a deformity. In some instances, though, the signs of a broken bone are subtler. When you break the scaphoid bone in your wrist, for example, you typically experience pain at the base of your thumb and might think you’ve only suffered a sprain.
2. Sprained ligaments: Ligaments are the thick, tough tissues that connect two bones, forming a joint. Your hand contains roughly 120 ligaments, which are vulnerable to sprains.
3. Arthritis: The joints in your hand are susceptible to arthritis, just like any joint in your body. When you suffer from osteoarthritis, the smooth cartilage protecting the ends of your bones at the joint erodes. Eventually, bone grates on bone, causing pain. Rheumatoid arthritis is another form that commonly occurs in the hands, causing pain and inflammation of your joints.
4. Carpal tunnel syndrome: This condition causes numbness, tingling and pain in your hand because the carpal tunnel (the opening through the bones making up your wrist and the base of your hand) has narrowed and is squeezing your median nerve, which provides function and feeling to your thumb, index and middle fingers.
5. Ganglion cysts: These small, fluid-filled lumps often form along your tendons or at the joints on the underside of your wrists or hands. They are harmless, but can put pressure on a nerve and cause pain.
6. Trigger finger: Your finger “locks” when you try to straighten it because a nodule has formed on your tendon, preventing the tendon from moving freely through the tendon sheath at the joint.
7. De Quervain’s tenosynovitis: This condition is similar to trigger finger, but only affects the thumb and involves an inflamed tendon sheath, not a nodule on the tendon. It causes pain and affects movements of your wrist and hand that involve your thumb.

The surgeons at Kayal Orthopaedic Center have the skills and experience to properly diagnose and treat whatever problem you are experiencing with your hands or wrists. To ease your pain and restore your mobility, we will use nonsurgical procedures whenever possible, but we also offer the most innovative, state-of-the-art surgical techniques when necessary. We use a broad range of innovative treatments for hand pain, including cortisone injections, platelet-rich plasma, ligament reconstruction, physical therapy, anti-inflammatory medications, arthroscopy, trigger finger release and endoscopic carpal tunnel release.

We believe compassion is an essential part of quality orthopaedic care. That’s why we take the time to answer your questions and address your concerns.

The elite team of award-winning surgeons at Kayal Orthopaedic Center can handle all of your orthopaedic needs, from hand and wrist surgery to hip replacement surgery in Ridgewood, NJ, and beyond. When you need orthopaedic care, you can make an appointment by calling 844.777.0910 or contact Kayal Orthopaedic Center by filling out this form.