How to treat finger osteoarthritis?

Fingers are very flexible because they have the most complex joint structures in the human body and are people's most important tools. Although the finger joints are flexible, they are prone to diseases, which can cause great damage to their functions. For example, finger osteoarthritis is one of the common problems and requires timely treatment. Let's take a look at how to treat finger osteoarthritis. I hope everyone can understand it.

Finger osteoarthritis is most likely to affect the distal and proximal interphalangeal joints of the hands, the knees, elbows, shoulders, and spinal joints, while the wrist and ankle joints are less likely to be affected.

Treatment

Common surgical treatments for finger osteoarthritis include arthroscopic surgery, osteotomy, and artificial joint replacement.

Cartilage fragments fall off into the joint cavity and form loose bodies, which we usually call "joint mice", which can be removed by arthroscopic surgery. Arthroscopic surgery can effectively identify and estimate the extent of joint lesions, irrigate and clean the joint cavity, remove loose bodies in the joint cavity, and improve the patient's mobility to a certain extent.

Various corrective osteotomies are used to improve joint alignment. Tibial osteotomy is mainly used for patients with valgus and valgus deformity of the knee (i.e. "O" or "X" type legs). Through surgery, the bent leg can be restored to a normal state as much as possible.

If the patient's condition develops to a severe stage, with severe loss of articular cartilage, too small joint space, loss of joint function, and serious impact on daily life, and conservative treatment is ineffective, artificial joint replacement should be considered, mainly artificial knee and hip replacement surgery. Joint replacement can better restore the mobility of joints and improve the patient's quality of life, but artificial joint replacement surgery is very traumatic, the service life of the replaced artificial joint is also limited, and the cost of surgery is high.

Adjunctive therapy

Adjuvant therapy is a method used in conjunction with drug therapy when the patient's joint disease is in the early or middle stages. Auxiliary treatment is what we usually call physical therapy and body therapy, such as electrotherapy, massage, acupuncture and other methods. Although auxiliary treatment has no fundamental effect on finger osteoarthritis, it can relieve the patient's local discomfort and have a calming, relaxing and analgesic effect on the patient.