Why Did My Finger Tendon Pop?

Hi, I'm Dr. Molly with Your Goals Physical Therapy, have you ever reached to grab for something and felt a pop in your finger? And been freaked out by that pop; then this video is perfect for you. Maria called me right around Thanksgiving with that exact same problem. Maria was getting ready for Thanksgiving when she walked by the eggnog aisle. And she was like, “Well, thank you. Yes, I will. I will have some eggnog while I'm preparing Thanksgiving dinner.”  She knew that she was going to be chopping and mixing and whatever all day. So she was like, “An eggnog drink sounds great!”  But when she went to grab the carton out of the freezer, she felt a pop, it wasn’t a sharp pop but it was a very definitive pop in her finger and it freaked her out

And she was like, “I didn't have to drop the carton. I didn't lose any strength, but it was definitely a pop and it didn't feel good.” And so she sat down the carton and she made it through the grocery store and she said it didn't swell. ​

She didn’t see any bruising, but she was really concerned about the pop since she believed a pop always meant something tore. ​

And she was like, “I didn't have to drop the carton. I didn't lose any strength, but it was definitely a pop and it didn't feel good.” And so she sat down the carton and she made it through the grocery store and she said it didn't swell. She didn’t see any bruising, but she was really concerned about the pop since she believed a pop always meant something tore. As she's talking to her girlfriend, her friend suggested that she call me,  just to get a little bit more information, and find out maybe what she should be doing. As I'm talking to her, she's like it swelled up a little bit, but not much, it's not bruised, but it's definitely very achy. And I've never had that kind of a sensation before. And I don't know what I should be doing next, to make sure this doesn't get worse.

I don't know if I need surgery. I just don't understand what's going on right now and why this hurts. She was like, I was able to go home and cook and do all the things that I wanted to. I noticed it, but it didn't stop me from doing anything. I had her come in for the evaluation, which took a little bit because she's like, “What if I need surgery? Why would I come in for you?” I was like, “If you come in, I'm not going to charge you if you need surgery, because I can't help you. So if you come in, I can look at your hand.  I can run some tests to see if it's more likely than not that you tore something. Then I will help you find the surgeon, to help you with your hand. But if not torn, which is where I'm kind of leaning based on what you're telling me, then we'll do some treatment and your hand should feel better by the time you leave the session.” And she's like, “Well, okay. Anything to make this thing feel better.” 

She comes in and Maria starts telling me about the history with her hand. And apparently this pop was definitely not the first thing for her hands. She’d been dealing with achy hands, every morning, it's so commonplace to achieve and forgets about it.  She just knows in the morning, she's going to have to open and close her hand a whole bunch of times before she feels like they’re normal. And even then she knows that she doesn't have the range that she used to but she never lost any strength. She can still do all the things that she wants to be able to do. She can still type for work. She can still go grocery shopping and hold the bags. She doesn't have any problems with any of those things. She just thought this was normal aging for arthritis. She even wakes up or gets woken up at night, occasionally because of numbness in her forearm and in her hand. And again, she just thought maybe I have a little carpal tunnel, but I'm not going to have the surgery. I'm just going to deal with this.

After talking to her for a little bit and doing the assessment, it was very obvious that she had tendonitis. She had tendinitis in her hand, and her forearm. Based on her history, she just told me, it had been there for awhile and just slowly getting worse.  That pop was just basically the tendons and getting just absolutely exhausted and the pop just happened. 
We were able to work together. And so, like I said, this was around Thanksgiving. Now here we are at the first of the year, and she is so much better. She told me the last session that she woke up three days with in the morning and realized that her hand was not numb and it didn't feel achy.

And that to her was the world. She is so, so excited and so happy that her hand is no longer a problem. Even though she'd never lost strength, she had always been a little bit concerned about the numbness and the tingling. She thought things like “Where was this going to end up?” She just sort of assumed that eventually she was going to have surgery on her hand for something, because this was just getting worse and worse and worse over time. And eventually she was going to lose strength, right? I mean, if everything else is going then why wouldn't you start to lose strength, which is when you have to pay attention, right? If you can't pick things up and hold them, then that's when you are going to have to do something. But here she is now a few weeks into working with me and she doesn't have that numbness and tingling in the morning. She is feeling a whole lot stronger, and that pop sensation is completely gone. She's not dealing with that at all. I know that not everybody is able to have a friend that knows me.

You might be a little bit hesitant to just pick up the phone and call me to ask me questions, or even to come in and see me. I save some appointments every week, I call them discovery visits. They are saved to help you if you have something that's kind of on the fence, and you don't really understand how somebody could help you. These appointments allow us to meet in person, talk through it and see what's going on and see if we're even a good fit. If we are, then we can move forward. And if not, I have no problems at all helping people find the right place, sometimes the most confusing thing is figuring out who to go see, to fix this problem that I'm having?
Of course, if you are ready to book, there's always an option for that too, on my website. I hope that everybody's having a fabulous first of the year. And I look forward to talking to you soon.

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