Quite often, patients complain that their finger joints hurt. All pathologies have strongly specific symptoms, so a specialist will quickly make a diagnosis and prescribe the right treatment.
Rheumatoid arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis is a serious disease accompanied by an inflammatory process. It causes joint pain and deformity. The pathology usually occurs in people over 30 years old. Women suffer from it 3 times more often than men.
Rheumatoid arthritis comes on suddenly and is associated with weakened immune system function. In this disease, the cells of the immune system mistake the cells of the joints for viruses or bacteria and try to eliminate them. The destruction process can last for many years.
The following symptoms of the disease are distinguished:
- severe joint pain, worse at night or in the morning.
- stiffness in joints after sleep.
- high body temperature;
- Sleep disorder;
- rapid fatigue.
- decreased appetite;
- sudden weight loss;
- formation of nodules in the elbow area.
Rheumatoid arthritis develops due to the following factors:
- previous sore throat or flu;
- joint injuries;
- infectious pathology;
- long-term stress and depression.
- genetic predisposition.
A hallmark of rheumatoid arthritis from arthropathy is a reduction in pain with exercise. If the joints of the fingers of the right hand are painful and swollen, then the same symptoms appear in the left hand. Over time, the disease can affect other joints.
If you start treatment at an early stage, you can avoid deformation and destruction of the joint.
Hue!Breastfeeding for two years reduces the risk of rheumatoid arthritis in women by 2 times.
Treatment
Modern methods of treating rheumatoid arthritis include the following:
- aurotherapy;
- cytostatics?
- taking antimalarial drugs;
- sulfonamides;
- D-penicillamine.
On average, even an experienced rheumatologist needs about 6 months to choose the right treatment method, as he considers the patient's characteristics and drug tolerance.
What is aurotherapy?
Aurotherapy involves taking medicines containing gold salts.
Doctors recommend the use of gold preparations in the initial stage of the disease. With their help, it is possible to achieve a positive effect in the treatment of acute, rapidly developing pathology with severe pain and early degenerative changes in the joints. Gold-based drugs are prescribed to patients in cases where non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs have not relieved their condition.
The main advantage of aurotherapy is that it can be used for simultaneous inflammatory pathologies and the presence of malignant tumors. Also, during the research, scientists found that gold salts actively fight fungi and some bacteria, including Helicobacter pylori.
The course of treatment with gold preparations is 2-3 months. If during this period the patient's condition has not improved, then this technique is canceled.
Note!Many people experience relapses of rheumatoid arthritis shortly after gold treatment. The rheumatologist may re-prescribe aurotherapy. Sometimes such treatment can last for years if it does not have negative consequences on other organs.
Is cytostatic therapy effective?
To eliminate the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, it is customary to use cytostatics.
Since the disease is autoimmune in origin, it is not surprising that doctors prescribe immunosuppressants. Their main advantage is their high efficiency at a relatively low dose. Rheumatoid arthritis patients are prescribed 5 or even 20 times less cytostatics than cancer patients. The drugs have been proven to fight severe forms of the disease with a high degree of progression.
Another advantage of treatment with immunosuppressants is the minimal number of side effects. Quite rarely, patients complain of the following symptoms:
- skin rash;
- bowel dysfunction;
- chills;
- difficulty urinating.
If the drug is stopped or the doctor adjusts the dosage, the side effects disappear quickly. The course of treatment is 1 month.
Treatment of finger joints with antimalarial drugs
Treatment of rheumatoid arthritis with antimalarial drugs is extremely rare. The main advantage of this treatment is the good tolerability of the drugs. A major disadvantage of this treatment is that the antimalarial drugs work slowly. Their effect is noticeable after 6-12 months, but the therapeutic effect is rather weak.
Will sulfonamides help rheumatoid arthritis?
Drugs from the sulfonamide group are successfully used to treat finger pain. Their advantages include:
- Good tolerance.
- Low rate of complications, if any.
- Affordable price.
The disadvantage of these drugs is their slow action. The positive effect is noticeable only 3 months after the start of the course of treatment.
How to treat D-penicillamine disease?
If the patient is suitable for treatment with gold preparations or the use of a cytostatic, then D-penicillamine does not need to be prescribed. It is much inferior to the mentioned methods of treatment in terms of effectiveness, but it significantly exceeds them in terms of the number of side effects, their frequency of occurrence and the degree of complications. Therefore, D-penicillamine therapy is used in cases where patients do not tolerate gold salts and cytostatics well.
D-penicillamine is used effectively in patients who have heart, respiratory or kidney complications. It should be taken for 3 to 5 years, then a break of several years will be required, after which the course must be repeated.
Gout - symptoms and treatment
One of the dangerous diseases of joints and tissues is gout. It appears due to a metabolic disorder in the body. Gout is characterized by an increased amount of uric acid in the lymph.
Symptoms of the disease include:
- inflammation of the big toe joint.
- severe pressing pain in the morning or evening.
- increased body temperature;
- redness of the skin;
- growths in the legs or arms.
If treatment is not started on time, the patient may develop gout. Possible complications also include urolithiasis and kidney failure, which can lead to death.
For the treatment of gout, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are used for 1-2 weeks.
In order to quickly reduce the concentration of uric acid in the body, anti-gout drugs are prescribed.
To eliminate the acute symptoms of gout, experts prescribe a drug based on the alkaloid of the trunks of the wonderful lily family. Glucocorticoids are used to relieve swelling and pain. These drugs quickly remove inflammation, but have a negative effect on the immune system.
Psoriatic ARTHRITIS
About 15% of patients diagnosed with psoriasis have problems with their finger joints. The signs of this disease are:
- joint deformity;
- pain syndrome at night.
- numbness of the extremities;
- discoloration of the skin in burgundy color at the point of development of the disease.
- swelling of fingers;
- limited mobility.
Most patients suffering from psoriatic arthritis have damage to the nail plates. Initially, small pits are formed on their surface, then their color changes due to microcirculation disturbance.
Quite often, pregnant women are diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis. This is due to the fact that the disease is also of hormonal origin, and a woman undergoes hormonal changes in her body during pregnancy. Increased signs of arthritis in pregnant women are often associated with weight gain.
The following causes of psoriatic arthritis are identified:
- injuries?
- severe stress and emotional stress.
- excessive physical activity;
- infectious diseases;
- hereditary predisposition.
The following groups of drugs are used to treat psoriatic arthritis:
- Non-steroidal drugs. Designed to eliminate inflammation and reduce pain.
- Glucocorticosteroids: injected into the joint cavity.
- Cytostatic from the group of folic acid antagonists: it is the most popular systemic drug.
- An immunosuppressant that acts selectively on T-lymphocytes: it is used to slow down the changes that occur in bone and cartilage tissue.
For psoriatic arthritis, stopping alcoholic beverages, reducing consumption of citrus fruits and smoked foods, and following a low-calorie diet are recommended.
Osteoarthritis – how to treat it and what are the consequences of the disease?
Elderly people often complain that their finger joints are swollen. This can be one of the signs of osteoarthritis. The disease can appear for the following reasons:
- hormonal imbalance;
- genetic predisposition?
- occupational stress and injuries.
- age-related metabolic disorder.
Joint pain can help identify the disease. The exact diagnosis is made by a specialist after X-ray and MRI.
Exercise will help alleviate the patient's condition. The set of exercises is selected by the doctor, focusing on the individual characteristics of the patient with osteoarthritis. Treatment also includes following a diet to lose excess weight, if any. You can not do without thermal processes. Paraffin baths are recommended, to which mineral oil must be added.
To eliminate pain and relieve swelling, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug from the group of propionic acid and acetylsalicylic acid derivatives is prescribed. Among analgesics, a drug from the anilide group is often used. Massage sessions will help warm up your muscles and improve blood circulation.
If treatment is not started in time, the person will become unable to cope with daily activities in the future. In such cases, joint replacement surgery cannot be avoided.
What is radicalization?
If a patient has pain in their thumb, this may indicate that they have a rhizarthrosis. The reasons for this phenomenon can be:
- joint overload;
- past infectious disease;
- injuries?
- body poisoning.
Treatment of arthrosis in stages 1-2 includes taking chondroprotectors. They activate the process of the appearance of new cartilage cells, which helps to eliminate the disease.
It is quite popular to use manual therapy to treat radiculosis. The therapist can realign the altered joint, causing the pain syndrome to disappear. In addition, you can massage the thumb to increase the tone of the cartilage tissue and improve the mobility of the joints.
If the patient is diagnosed with the 3rd stage of rhizarthrosis, then intra-articular injections of hyaluronic acid are prescribed. The use of glucocorticosteroids and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs is also effective. They increase blood flow to the affected joint, eliminate pain and relieve swelling.
Traditional medicine for finger pain
You can cope with pain not only with the help of drugs, but also by resorting to folk remedies. For acute pain, it is effective to use a gauze bandage soaked in apple cider vinegar. To relieve swelling, compresses with baked onions or boiled potatoes are perfect. It is helpful to warm the painful joint with hot sea salt and rub it with fir oil.
Tinctures
A common treatment method is tinctures. You can use vodka for preparation. You should take 50 ml of vodka and 30 ml of valerian tincture, mix both ingredients and add two pods of red pepper. After 3 hours, wet a cotton swab in the resulting mixture and apply to the phalanx. The positive effect is noticeable after a month of such treatment.
Another effective remedy is a tincture based on chestnut inflorescence. It is enough to collect the raw materials and mix them with vodka. Leave for 14 to 20 days. Rub the product when your fingers are numb and feel pain. Instead of chestnut inflorescences, it is allowed to use lilac.
Ointments
If your joints hurt when you press your fingers, you should use a mustard and honey ointment. To prepare it, combine 5 g of mustard and 15 g of honey. Then add 30 ml of olive oil, evaporate the mixture in a water bath to a thick consistency, cool and use daily to treat affected joints.
For pain in the joint of the index finger of the right hand, an ointment based on bay leaves and juniper needles is recommended. Both ingredients must be mixed in equal proportions, then add 50 g of butter. You can use the ointment during regular joint massage.