Understanding and Living with Thumb Arthritis

Thumb arthritis can turn simple everyday tasks into painful endeavors. Damage to your most important finger can make it difficult to open a jar, button a shirt, turn a doorknob or even sign your name.

While this common condition is not curable, there are steps you can take to maintain or improve your quality of life.

What Is Thumb Arthritis?

Arthritis comes in many forms, though thumb arthritis is usually caused by osteoarthritis, also known as wear-and-tear arthritis. What happens to your thumb is similar to what would occur if you bought a set of 20,000-mile tires for your car and then used them for 60,000 miles. You would wear the rubber all the way down to the underlying steel belt. And there’s no way to put rubber back on the tires.

Similarly, the bones in your thumb joint are covered by a layer of cartilage that serves as a cushion allowing them to work together. Arthritis slowly destroys that cartilage, leaving the bones to rub against each other. This creates pain and discomfort any time you attempt to grasp, grip or manipulate something with your hand.

Other symptoms include:

• Weakness when gripping or pinching
• Tenderness or swelling at the base of your thumb
• Aching after using your thumb for a lengthy period
• Limited range of motion in your thumb
• Base of thumb appears to be “out of joint”
• Bony prominence or bump appears on the basal joint at the base of the thumb

What causes it?

This second-most common form of arthritis in the hand is often found in women over the age 40. It is more commonly found in people who are obese or who have had previous hand injuries involving the thumb. Also, people with jobs that put repetitive stress on their thumbs are at greater risk.

The thumb is particularly vulnerable to wear-and-tear arthritis because of its anatomical structure. It is a saddle joint, where one bone sits in a second bone as if it were a saddle. This is what allows us to have opposable thumbs, but it also makes the joint more fragile. Instability in that joint can increase your risk.

Management Options

Unfortunately, there’s no cure for osteoarthritis. In earlier stages, the goal is to help manage symptoms through a variety of strategies. If the condition becomes severe, surgery may be suggested. Among the treatments:

• Medications: There are several options that may help, including topical treatments applied to the skin and over-the-counter medications for both pain and inflammation. If the pain is more severe, prescription pain relievers may provide relief.
• Injections: Corticosteroid injections into the joint may provide longer-lasting relief from the pain and discomfort.
• Braces and splints: These devices are worn on your hand to provide support and stabilization for the thumb joint. They can help the joint rest and remind you to keep it properly positioned to avoid further aggravation. These may be worn only at night when you sleep, or throughout the day.
• Surgery: There are several surgical options available, depending on the severity of the arthritis and condition of the joint. A stabilizing procedure, for example, can be used in the earlier stages to bolster the joint, using tiny anchors that help you regain the ability to pinch with your thumb. In more advanced conditions, there are arthroplasty surgeries that are used to remove a small bone (the trapezium) that is part of the thumb’s saddle joint. The removal of the bone effectively eliminates the arthritic joint. In place of the bone, your surgeon will insert a small cushion/support device to maintain stability and function in the joint.

This content is not AI generated.