Trigger Finger – Overview

Transcript

Today we’re going to talk about trigger finger. Trigger finger is known in the medical world as a condition known as stenosing tenosynovitis, which essentially means that your finger gets stuck as you bring it down into your palm. Trigger fingers is one of the most common diagnosis that a hand specialist sees. It tends to be more common in certain disease states and even overuse injuries. Patients that typically have trigger finger complain of pain and clicking and popping in their hand. The cause of the trigger finger is really that the muscles that move your fingers come from all the way up in your forearm. In your forearm, these muscles transition to a tendon and the tendon attaches out to the bone, which helps you move your finger up and down. In order to make the fingers move more efficiently, the tendons are actually attached to the bone via something called a pulley system, which starts at about the mid palm. In that pulley system, sometimes the tendon can be swollen and when it swells up, it has a tough time going through the tunnel. When it does that, it can cause snapping and catching and even locking it into the palm.