Trigger Finger
By Dr. Baertsch
One of the more common hand problems that people develop, and that we see in clinical practice is commonly known as trigger finger. The medical term is stenosing tenosynovitis. This can happen anytime a tendon slides through a tendon sheath.
The most common place that we see it is at the end of the palm right before the fingers in what’s called the A1 pulley, repetitive trauma or anything that can cause an inflammatory response in the tendon. That results in some swelling of the tendon and then subsequently, you get some friction where that tendon goes through the the tendon sheath, it can cause pain, swelling, and when it gets a little bit more advanced, a nodule actually develops on the tendon which can cause some clicking or sticking on the finger in either the open or closed position.
When that’s early and first diagnosed, we usually treat it with an injection with some steroid and some local anesthetic which is quite successful. But in some cases, when it is recurrent, or when the injection therapy doesn’t solve the problem, then there’s a small surgery that we can do to release that sheath so that the tendon can slide through and it’s very simple, small surgery with an easy recovery and a high success rate.