This is a segment of a Dr. Jay Show focusing on trigger finger treatments, broadcast on AM 1560TheGame. Dr. J. Michael Bennett is a Board Certified Orthopedic Surgeon and a Fellowship Trained Sports Medicine Physician serving patients from Katy, Fort Bend County, Metro Houston and Southeast Texas from offices in Houston, near the Galleria and in Sugar Land, TX. Call 281-633-8600 for an appointment. Our special guest for this show is Dr. Alan Rodgers, a hand specialist practicing in the Katy area.
Here’s the summary of the fifth segment covering trigger finger treatments:
Dr. J. Michael Bennett: Sometimes patients come in with a condition where their finger gets caught and this band pulls it down to the point where you can’t lift that finger up without really stretching that cord. That’s definitely different than somebody who just kind of locks their finger and their finger gets kind of caught and then it pops – that’s actually called a “trigger finger.” You can tell us a little bit about that as well because there’s definitely a big difference between those two and what are the treatment options for these trigger fingers that you see?
Dr. Alan Rodgers: A trigger finger, unlike Dupuytren’s, involves the actual tendon of the finger. All of our tendons glide in and out of what we call pulleys, and one at the base of the finger on the palm side is usually the culprit. Through years of gliding, inflammation builds up around the tendon and it doesn’t fit through the little tunnel quite as well. People notice this since their finger gets locked out and they have to push it down to bend it or it locks down and they have to pull it up to straighten it out. But usually once they get it moving they can move it, they might feel a little knot or something on their palm, but that’s just a swelling or inflammation around the tendon. If it’s rather mild, we can do conservative treatment such as injections. I see a lot of these on golfers, tennis players, athletes usually in their 40s. They’re usually very responsive to injections but usually the injection is a temporary fix. It can sometimes give them three, even six months without pain and without the locking and clicking associated with this. When it does come back, however, there is a minor surgery that’s usually recommended for this where we release that band. Fortunately that band that usually catches on the tendon isn’t required for the function of the finger and so releasing it totally obviates any future catching around that band.
Dr. J. Michael Bennett: That’s actually a very common thing, I see a lot of patients come in with the clicking fingers and they do pretty well with the injections. The procedure is very quick and there’s a very small incision, they just go in there, release it and you’re done. You start moving it immediately and usually the results are very good.
Our office is part of the highly-regarded Fondren Orthopedic Group and we refer complex wrist and hand injuries to hand specialists at Fondren for treatment. The Fondren hand surgeons are board certified and have added qualifications in hand surgery.
Dr. J. Michael Bennett treats certain wrist and hand injuries including carpal tunnel syndrome, distal radius fractures (broken wrist), trigger finger and metacarpal fractures of the hand. He specializes in using the endoscopic approach to carpal tunnel syndrome, when appropriate for the patient, which means that the carpal tunnel surgery consists of two small incisions instead of a longer incision across the middle of the palm of the hand.
Please call our Sugar Land office at 281-633-8600 or our Houston office at 713-234-3152 for an appointment to evaluate your hand injury.
