Health Care

Steve Madigan

Introduction to DeQuervain's Tendonitis DeQuervain's tendonitis is also recognized as DeQuervain's tenosynovitis, DeQuervains syndrome and DeQuervains disease. De Quervain's tendonitis is a unpleasant condition characterized by pain and swelling on the thumb side of the wrist. De Quervain's tendonitis is a condition brought on by irritation or swelling of the tendons found along the thumb side of the wrist.

This is representative of RSI tendonitis at the wrist which is some cases can be brought on by even texting on a cell phone. De Quervain's tendonitis, however, involves just the thumb tendon, which runs through a canal at the base of the thumb at the back of the hand. Tendons are ropes of fibrous tissue that unite muscles to bones.

Who Can Get DeQuervain's Tendonitis Tendonitis is common among musicians, typists, professional phone bank workers and assembly-line workers. The common denominator between all of these workers (or play) involve very repetitive motion in the fingers, hands or arms. Tendonitis in the wrist arises because of repetitive motion.

Symptoms of DeQuervain's Tenosynovitis or Tendonitis in Thumb Some symptoms of DeQuervain's tenosynovitis tendonitis may include the following: 1. Pain and tenderness along a tendon, usually in proximity to the thumb and/or wrist joints. 2. Other symptoms may include stiffness, weakness, numbness and pain in the upper extremity.

Pain Associated with De Quervain's Tendonitis Pain that occurs when grasping or pinching and tenderness over the wrist, are the most common symptoms of DeQuervain's tendonitis. Another sign is pain over the thumb-side of the wrist. Sometimes Dequervain's tendonitis is mistaken for arthritis. They are the same in the sense that there is pain associated with each. If you are having pain at the base of the thumb chances are this is DeQuervain's tendonitis.

Treatment for De Quervains's Tendonitis The following are some of the treatments of DeQuervains tenosynovitis tendonitis. The main goal of DeQuervain's tenosynovitis treatment is to relieve the pain and to reduce inflammation.

Splinting and Medications Treatment consists of tendonitis physical therapy, stretching and strengthening exercises, splints, and injections. Some of the inflammation can be treated with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications such as Motrin or Advil. These over the counter medications will work well for some mild cases. Here is another idea on how to reduce the pain and inflammation. If you don't have an ice pack you can use a frozen bag of pea's from your local grocery store and place this ice pack on the thumb side of the wrist for 20 to 30 minutes. Then allow the area to warm up again and use the ice pack as mentioned above, repeat severasl times. This can help with the pain and swelling for the short term. Check the following article on how to correctly "ice an injury" for more information. In some extreme cases and as a last resort before surgery, cortisone injections may be administered directly into the effected tendon. This can help with the pain and inflammation on a short term basis. Due to the side effects of these injections it is not recommended for the long term. Surgery, Last Resort for DeQuervain's Tendonitis In excruciating or recurring cases where self-care treatments and injections didn't work, surgery can be done to open up the channel where the tendons pass from the thumb. Surgery usually helps out four out of five people with this problem.

There still are draw back to this treatment also. As many as one out of five people will have a new problem after surgery. One problem is numbness on the back of the hand and another is tenderness of the scar. For more information on other tendonitis symptoms and treatments visit: Peroneal Tendonitis

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