New finger pain

Margistar

I was diagnosed with chronic osteoarthritis in 7 of my fingers about ten years ago, which crept up and increased from left hand to right, but I didn’t have too much pain to bear. The greatest difficulty was no longer being able to play my guitar, or use my calligraphy pens, watercolours etc. Only two of my fingers can bend now unfortunately, though most of them don’t really hurt.
However, my middle right fingers are now excruciating most days, since these last few months.

I was recommended Ease It by a teacher friend, which controls her pain, but it has little lasting effect with me. It’s as if those two fingers are on fire.

Can anybody with a similar condition recommend any effective pain relief please? My mother had both OA and RA and took various analgesics, but I very rarely take anything beyond vitamins, believing that I can cope with pain because, otherwise, I’m extremely fit at age 75.

Margistar

claudsl

Hi @Margistar and welcome to our online community!

Sorry to hear you are experiencing a lot of pain. It's difficult when the pain starts to affect daily tasks and things you enjoy doing, such as playing the guitar.

My fingers have never been affected by arthritis. Mine started in my wrist when I was 10 years old and I found a wrist splint helped, however i'm not sure if there is anything similar for fingers so hopefully someone else can offer better advice on this. Here are some exercises that may help in the meantime. Could be worth a try.

https://www.versusarthritis.org/about-arthritis/exercising-with-arthritis/exercises-for-healthy-joints/exercises-for-the-fingers-hands-and-wrists/

Wishing you all the best. Claudia x

Babsand

Hi Margistar I am 88 & was diagnosed 10 years ago with Osteoarthritis in both hands. At that time, the thumbs were the worst so over those years I have used Thumb & Wrist supports which helped enormously. However, now I get excrutiating pain in all my fingers, particularly at night, & like you I like to paint. For the night pain I massage Jointace into my hands & then wear full black gloves with copper on the inside. I can now sleep at night without pain waking me up. I find that exercising my hands on a regular basis also helps during the day. Lots of things I can't do, but there are aid gadgets that can help if you look around. Try a pen gripper on the brushes - this works for me when I can't grip the brush. Hope this helps - keep smiling.