Finger Joint Pain Causes and Treatments

Finger Joint Pain Causes and Treatments

The importance of hands cannot be overstated. Hands are important in helping us keep our balance as we walk, carry big or small luggage and carrying out minor tasks such as tying one’s shoelaces. In most of the activities handled by the hands, joints at the fingers and wrist have to work harmoniously as a single unit. This way, the intended motion of the hand is achieved. When this harmonious movement is hindered by finger joint pain, daily activities such as driving or using a computer become challenging tasks.

What Are the Possible Causes of Finger Joint Pain?
Finger joint pain can occur due to a traumatic injury to the affected hand or other parts of the body such as the spinal cord. Or the pain can appear unnoticed due to a gradual occurrence. Whenever you notice this kind of pain or stiff fingers, it is advisable to seek your doctor’s advice.

1. Ligament Strain
If a finger’s movement gets to available limits or past these limits, its ligaments on one side can get damaged. Ligaments are important parts of the body because they are fibres that act as linkages between different bones. If a finger is moved excessively beyond its limits, fibres will get torn. When this happens, surgery might be required for purposes of treating the injury.The signs of this injury include swelling, bruising and limited finger movement or stiff fingers.

2. Arthritis
There are two forms of arthritis that can lead to finger joint pain: Osteoarthritis and Rheumatoid Arthritis. With the former, material between adjacent bones, the cartilage, wears down and hence the bones are able to rub against each other. When bones rub against each other, a person will experience sharp pain, which can occur even when the fingers are inactive. Osteoarthritis can be present on one or more fingers.

Rheumatoid arthritis simultaneously affects more than one finger. This type of arthritis causes inflammation of joints. Affected joints are painful mostly when they are active. Luckily, any type of arthritis is treatable either by using some drugs or changing the activities that someone takes part in.

3. Tendon Injury
Despite there being no muscles on the fingers, each finger has tendons both on the front and rear sides. These tendons are long and attach to both nearby muscles and joints of the fingers. Since the tendons attach to these joints, a tendon’s injury leads to pain within a joint. Injury to a tendon can occur when someone lifts a weight that is too heavy or due to some trauma. The injury is characterized by the finger swelling, bruises as well as stiffness. You can identify a torn tendon when you find that a certain finger joint can no longer be straightened. In such a scenario, you would have to seek a doctor’s assistance and probably have some corrective surgery on the finger.

4. Bone Fracture
A fracture on a finger’s bone will occur in the event of trauma. Example of trauma is having someone step on your finger or a weight drop on the finger. Bone fracture is not only painful but can also lead to visible deformity of the finger. In other cases, someone may fail to notice this injury. This happens when the injuries of tendons and ligaments lead to chip fractures. This fracture occurs at the point where the fibers attach to the bone. With this injury, the person suffers stiff fingers and the solution lies in undergoing a reparative surgical procedure to repair the tendons and ligaments.

5. Nutritional Deficiency
Sometimes people eat food in order to deal with their hunger pangs rather than addition of the right nutrients for their body. Various nutrients’ deficiencies can lead to finger joint pain, such as vitamin D deficiency, vitamin B6 deficiency, magnesium deficiency and protein deficiency. Apart from finger joint pain, lacking these nutrients also leads to other unwanted conditions within the body such as tightness of muscles.

6. Inflammation
If you suffer from pain around the joints of your fingers, you should find a way of reducing any inflammation because it leads to unwanted situations such as tightening of muscles, trapped fluids and increasing pain levels. Therefore, a finger joint could be healthy but due to inflammation, a person will experience pain.

How to Manage Finger Joint Pain


1. Compresses
It is possible to reduce finger joint pain through hot, cold or both hot and cold compresses. Using both of them is the best option. Application of the cold or hot temperatures should last for about 15 minutes. Alternating the compresses, start with cold, then hot and do this thrice in a day.

2. Olive oil
Olive oil contains a compound that inhibits inflammation. This oil can be used to treat painful or stiff finger joints in two ways, cooking food with the oil or massaging affected fingers with warm olive oil. For the massage, heat the olive oil up to a proper state and then apply it to your finger joint. This reduces inflammation and moisturizes the skin.

3. Cinnamon and Honey
Cinnamon has antioxidants that assist in alleviating joint pains. One quality of honey is being antiseptic, which reduces pain in finger joints. It is advisable to take a small mixture of cinnamon and honey before breakfast every day. The mixture should be a teaspoon of cinnamon and a tablespoon of honey. This home remedy works within a week.

4. Epsom Salts
In order to use Epsom salts as a home remedy for a stiff finger that is causing you pain as well as relax the affected hand, dip the hand in a mixture of the salt and warm water or warm oil. When this is done for about 30 minutes in a day, both inflammation and pain are reduced greatly. This home remedy works because Epsom salts contain magnesium.

5. Other Remedies
The ultimate home care is avoiding too risky activities that can cause Finger Pain. In the event of minor finger injuries leading to pain from fingers some home remedy steps can be taken. These steps involve removing rings from swollen fingers, avoiding use of the affected finger, application of ice and elevating the finger in pain, taking pain relievers, and buddy taping an injured finger to the adjacent healthy finger.

When to See a Doctor
Despite the availability of remedies and home care for finger joint pain, some situations will necessitate consulting of a doctor. These situations include

• When the cause of pain is an injury


• When it is a finger’s deformation


• Persistence of pain for more than 7 days


• A finger that is numb or itchy


• When the finger is very painful even when inactive


• An inability to straighten a finger


• Redness of skin


• Swelling of the finger or when experiencing fever

On visiting your doctor, he will carry out a physical exam on your affected hand as well as fingers. In doing this, the doctor would:

• Ask you questions in order to know what you have been experiencing or any other medical conditions you have suffered in the past.


• Carry out an X-ray on the affected area.


• Determine the best form of treatment for you, which will be determined by the pain’s cause.

Finger Joint Pain

Finger Joint Pain






Fingers offer wide range of movements in daily life and it is difficult to imagine life without proper functioning of fingers. Hand is made of many bones, ligaments, tendons and muscles which helps in making flexible movements including writing, holding and lifting any object. The wrist is the meeting point of two main bones of forearm. One is the large sized bone located on the thumb side called radius and the other is small sized bone found on the opposite side called ulna. These two bones would meet the corpus at the point of wrist. Wrist is composed of many joints and ligaments wherein several bones of the hand and arm meet.

Finger joint is covered with cartilage layer which makes it possible for gliding smoothly during movement. These joints are made of fibrous capsule lined with synovium (a thin membrane) which secretes synovial fluid for giving lubrication to the joints. Whenever there is loss of fluid the joints develop swelling causing Finger Pain. Finger joint pain can cause symptoms like tenderness and stiffness, limited movements of finger and swelling of joints with intense pain. Various medical conditions like arthritis, Osteoporosis, Gout and lupus can affect the finger joint. Finger joints can be damaged by injury, trauma and nerve damage caused by prolonged diabetes. Finger joint pain can be diagnosed with suitable imaging tests. Treatment of finger joint includes medications, therapy, wearing of splints and strengthening exercises.

Symptoms :

Any form of arthritis can cause significant damage to fingers causing pain and stiffness of joints. Pain while moving fingers and stiffness are the first symptoms of finger Joint Inflammation. It causes intense pain while making certain movements with fingers. The symptoms will not be persistent and increases when doing certain activities. Some of the common signs of finger joint pain include tenderness of joints, stiffness, restricted movement, crackling sound in the joints and weakness. There can be considerable loss of muscle mass leading to muscle wasting due to osteoarthritis. Arthritis can attack any joint of the body but parts like knee joint, hip joint and finger joints are the most common. Some people may feel the pain in one finger but for others it can be felt on all the fingers.

Causes :

Arthritis or inflammation of joints is one of the root causes of finger joint pain. Arthritis can occur in many forms like Rheumatoid Arthritis, osteoarthritis and much more. Severe form of arthritis can cause more damage to the muscles, joints and finger bones and even they can damage the blood vessels and tissues inside. Finger joint pain can also be caused by many medical conditions like diabetes (prolonged) that can damage the nerve resulting in tingling or numbness of fingers. This condition is called as peripheral neuropathy.

Injury or trauma can also damage the finger joint which can commonly occur during accidents. Carpel tunnel syndrome can damage the finger joint causing intense pain. In addition to the pain, some of the medical conditions may cause tingling sensation, numbness and painful ulcers on the fingers. Gout is a type of arthritis that develops due to excess secretion of uric acid and deposition on finger joints. It can cause excruciating pain with swelling.

Certain types of skin infection like lupus can also induce finger pain. It is an autoimmune disorder in which body’s own immunity would produce antibodies to attack healthy joints and tissues. The blood vessels of the hands or legs get narrowed due to heightened stress or very cold temperature. In such condition the fingers would become pale and white and painful. This is known as Raynaud’s phenomenon. Osteoporosis is another condition in which the bones lose its density leading to fracture. This is common with aging process. Sometimes the connective tissue gets hardened due to abnormal growth of hard skin affecting the soft skin covering the fingers. This can reduce the normal mobility of fingers and this condition is known as Scleroderma. Other conditions like Dupuytren’s contracture and Trigger Finger can also induce finger joint pain.

Diagnosis :

It is easy to identify finger joint pain based on symptoms. Your doctor would assess the symptoms after physical examination checking for tenderness and inflammation of the finger joint. He may request for X-ray to identify bone spur or mild fracture. If required, CAT scan or Magnetic Resonance Imaging test, bone scan or other relevant tests would be done.

Treatment :

Treatment is based on the symptoms and severity of joint damage. Mild form of finger joint pain can be managed by conservative measures like hot and cold therapy. Cold ice packs can be applied on the painful finger to reduce swelling. Similarly heat therapy can provide relief from pain. Splinters or braces can be used for treating the finger joint affected with arthritis. Fractured finger can be kept immobilized using splints. This device can be useful for treating Carpal Tunnel Syndrome that causing tingling and numbness of fingers. In addition, several other devices are useful for managing stiffness of finger joints.

• Medications :

NSAID’s are highly effective in treating the symptoms of many types of arthritis. Corticosteroids like cortisone would be injected directly on the affected joint of the finger to give quick relief from pain in severe cases. Analgesics are recommended to treat arthritis which can give relief from pain, swelling and rigidness of finger joints. Anti rheumatic drugs can be used to control inflammation but they work slowly. Based on the underlying medical condition your doctor would prescribe suitable medications.

• Surgery :

Surgery will be considered only for severe cases wherein symptoms are uncontrollable and it arrests the normal function of fingers. Wrist fusion, wrist replacement and finger joint fusion are some of the surgeries done for finger joint pain. In wrist fusion, the surgeon would gently remove the joints that are badly damaged by arthritis and replace them with plates. Fusion can be either partial or complete based on the condition.

Wrist replacement can be done by making small incision on the wrist to remove the damaged joints and some of the bones which would be replaced with metal prosthesis along with carpal component. For patients affected with Carpal tunnel syndrome, the surgeon would release the carpal ligament from the nerve. Nowadays this can be done with minimal invasive method.