Hand Arthritis Treatment in Columbia, SC

What is Hand Arthritis?

Arthritis is a simple word for pain caused by inflammation in one or more of your joints. Osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis are the most common types of arthritis, but there are more than 100 others.

There are a lot of small joints in the hand and wrist that work together to make movements, including the small movements you need to thread a needle or tie your shoes.

When arthritis affects the joints in the hands, it can be hard to do the things you need to do every day. Joints that are messed up by arthritis can change shape over time. This makes the pain worse and makes it even harder to move. Some things might no longer be possible.

Hand Arthritis Symptoms

Some early signs of arthritis in the hand may include:

• Joint pain that is dull or sharp and comes on hours or a day after you use your hands more
• Your hand(s) hurt and are stiff in the morning
• Hand(s) with swollen joints

If you have had arthritis in one or both of your hands for a longer period of time you may experience:

• Pain can go from dull to sharp
• Pain may wake you up at night
• You might change how you use your hands because of the pain
• Tissues near the injured joints may turn red and hurt when you touch them
• When you bend your fingers, you’ll hear or feel grating, grinding, cracking, or clicking
• You can’t fully open and close your hands
• Small bumps of bone that form on the middle or top joint of your finger
• Your finger joints get big, change shape, and bent in strange ways. This makes your hands weak and less able to do everyday things