Trigger thumb

[IamGroot]

Has anyone ever developed Trigger thumb, on Xmas day 2015 I woke up with this condition in my left thumb and after several months of daily exercises my GP decided I need a course of cortisone injections. The first injection reduced the lump and movement by 70% and the second injection has made the movement 50% worse. Next up is I'm off to see a hand surgeon, my GP said its not really known what causes the problem. On Saturday I went hard on the mountain bike for 3 hours and it always feel better after this kind of workout. Strange hey.

[John Lewis]

Yes. I had one years ago. Think it was caused by a bad knock.
I had surgery and it has been good ever since.

As I understand it then was a nodule formed on a tendon and it
was catching in the sheath.

They split the sheath a bit. That's probably an over simplification.

John

[gorilla monsoon]

Same. Diagnosis, see specialist, have the surgery, back one the bike within a week.
That was about 12 months ago. My surgeon said he couldn't be bothered mucking around with cortisone because of the so-so success rate.
Surgery apparently has an almost-100% success rate.

[caitymb]

Have had trigger finger (not thumb). Developed it after spending too much time too quickly hitting balls at the driving range; with a tight grip.

Saw the physio a few times and eased up on the driving range whilst doing some rehab exercises, and hasn't returned since.

Personally, I'd avoid too many cortisone injections if you can - ie. I'd try non steroidal intervention (rest, reduce inflammation, then rehab). It's a bit of band-aid fix and there's only a limited number (I believe the magic number is three) you can have in a joint before it adversely impacts it....not generally an effective long term solution?

However, it appears there is research to support that it may be a somewhat beneficial intervention for trigger thumb moreso than fingers:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3504690/

EDIT: Extract/conclusion from the study that will be of most interest and relates to the above -

"In conclusion, steroid injection is a successful first-line intervention for the treatment of trigger digit, especially in the thumb. The total efficacy of the steroid injections was 66% in the study. There was statistically a greater success of the injections in treating the thumb compared with other fingers. The severity of the condition at presentation, the presence of a nodule at the site and osteoarthritis or diabetes all reduced the efficacy of the steroid injection. However the study was not large enough to demonstrate a statistically significant difference between these variables.

The efficacy of a third steroid injection needs to be investigated in a larger study, but the findings of this study suggest that a third injection does not substantially increase the efficacy of the treatment. It is therefore recommended that after two steroid injections the patient with recurrent symptoms is offered a surgical or percutaneous release of the triggering digit."