Pain in bent fingers when waking up from sleep

If you wake up from sleep and find that your fingers are bent, this may be a symptom caused by rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis is a disease with a relatively large impact. If the patient does not receive timely treatment when it occurs, it may even have a great impact on the patient's ability to move. Here is some basic information about rheumatoid arthritis.

1. Rest

Especially when the lesion is in the acute stage, the patient should rest completely to relieve pain; in the non-acute stage, it is also not recommended for the patient to be overly active or do strenuous exercise.

2. Physical therapy

During the recovery period, effective physical therapy can be chosen as appropriate to help joint movement and improve the inflammatory response of the diseased joints, while also preventing them from losing too much functionality.

3. Medication

There are mainly the following types:

(1) Salicylate drugs: They are commonly used in clinical practice, with a dose of 0.5 to 1.0 g, 4 times a day. Gastrointestinal reactions and decreased platelet aggregation ability are likely to occur. Currently, enteric-coated preparations are more commonly used.

(2) Gold preparations: When the former cannot control the symptoms, gold preparations such as gold sodium thiomalate or gold thioglucose can be injected intramuscularly, 10 μg in the first week, 25 μg in the second week, and up to 50 μg per week thereafter. Pay attention to the patient's general condition when taking the medicine, and use it with caution in patients with liver, kidney and blood diseases.

(3) Immunosuppressants: such as cyclophosphamide, methotrexate and other drugs. Mainly used for severe, active rheumatoid arthritis. Methotrexate (MTX) is administered once a week, with the dosage selected as appropriate, ranging from 2.5 to 15 μg. The patient's liver and blood system changes should be closely observed after taking the medicine.

4. Surgery

Deformities caused by rheumatoid disease can be treated surgically during the quiescent period. The following four types of surgical procedures are commonly used:

(1) Synovectomy: It is mainly used for metacarpophalangeal joints, wrist joints, knee joints, etc., and can remove the diseased synovium. After synovectomy, joint function should be gradually restored with the help of a brace.

(2) Joint irrigation + endoscopic synovectomy: In large joints, especially the knee joint, synovectomy can be performed under arthroscopy, and repeated irrigation can be performed at the same time to replace the composition of the joint fluid to relieve arthritis symptoms and improve joint function.

(3) Arthroplasty: For weight-bearing joints, especially the metatarsophalangeal joints of the foot, when claw toe deformity affects weight-bearing, metatarsal head resection can be performed to form a new joint to improve weight-bearing function and relieve pain.

(4) Artificial joint replacement: For patients with severe rheumatoid arthritis, when their hip or knee joints are severely damaged and cannot be repaired, artificial joint replacement may be used as appropriate. This situation is more common in elderly patients.