Hand Pain

Why am I experiencing hand pain?

Hand pain can be a right nuisance. It can prevent you from doing what you want to do, whether that be your general daily activities, work, exercise, or sports, which can be highly frustrating.

Hand pain can come on gradually, often due to repetitive movements of your wrist, hand and fingers, working at a computer or laptop all day, playing musical instruments, DIY, housework, or other activities that involve gripping objects repetitively.

Hand pain can also come on after a specific incident, such as gripping or lifting a heavy object, twisting your hand awkwardly, gripping something too quickly, throwing something, or falling on an outstretched hand.

The most common sources of hand pain are either a tendinopathy, wear and tear of the joints in your hand, carpal tunnel syndrome, ganglion cyst, or a fracture.

A tendinopathy is where the tendons attaching to the bones in your hand become overloaded, resulting in certain changes to the tendon, including swelling, stiffness, inflammation, micro-tears and a reduced blood supply.

Wear and tear of the joints in your hand is a natural process that happens as you age. There are 4 stages of wear and tear. The first stage is where the cartilage within the joints in your hand starts to thin. The second stage is where the joint spaces begin to narrow, and the cartilage begins to break down. The third stage is where the joint spaces becomes even narrower, and gaps in the cartilage can appear. The final stage is where the joint space is greatly reduced, the loss of cartilage reaches beyond 60%, and large bony spurs form.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is where pressure on a nerve in your hand causes pain and numbness in your hand or fingers.

A ganglion cyst is a fluid filled swelling that develops over the hand joint, or a tendon that runs over your hand.

A fracture is where you break a bone in your hand. This can typically affect either your carpal, metacarpal, or phalangeal bones.

As I’m sure you’re beginning to realise, there are such a wide range of potential causes for your hand pain.

Is there anything that can be done to make my hand pain better?

You might have tried resting your hand, stretching, hot or cold packs, taking painkillers, or seeing your GP, yet your hand pain simply won’t go away.

But rest assured, there is a solution. Physiotherapy is a safe and effective solution for hand pain. Our experts have helped countless amounts of people to overcome their hand pain and get back to living a pain free lifestyle.

Your therapist will first need to undertake an assessment, to effectively diagnose and help you to understand why you’re experiencing hand pain.

Your therapist will then put a comprehensive treatment plan in place to help you to overcome your hand pain and fully achieve your goals, supporting you at every step along the way.

This treatment plan will comprise an array of treatments, including expert ergonomic, postural, and sleeping advice, hands on therapy, and exercises to do at home, all tailored towards your specific hand pain.

How long is it going to take for my hand to get better?

Unfortunately, there isn’t a quick magical fix for hand pain.

A typical recovery journey for hand pain will last around 3-6 months.

If you wish to get rid of your hand pain for good, there are 8 key stepping stones that make up your recovery journey.

It’s important that each stepping stone is ticked off, to allow you to not only fully recover from your hand pain, but to prevent recurrence of your hand pain in the future.

For the vast majority of clients who present to us with hand pain, we find that it typically takes around 6-8 appointments to tick off all of these stepping stones. Some injuries require a little less, others a little more.

You might only have to tick off a few of the stepping stones, which would lead to a shorter recovery journey, but if you need to tick them all off, this will require a longer recovery journey.

How much will it cost?

Your initial appointment with us will cost £79. Each follow up treatment will cost £59.

How do I start my recovery journey?

To begin recovering from your hand pain, give us a call on 02381300260 and ask to book in for a Physiotherapy Initial Appointment.

Alternatively, you can book online, by clicking on the book now button below. On our online booking page, the appointment you need to select is the ‘Physiotherapy – Initial Appointment’.