Thumb Sided Wrist Pain

Dr. Todd Gaddie:

Dr. Todd Gaddie here to talk to you about pain on the thumb side of the wrist.

When we think about pain in the hand world, we think about pain that’s associated with an injury and pain that’s associated with activities of daily living or doesn’t really have an injury cause.

When we think about non-injury pain, we think about two conditions. One of them is basilar thumb arthritis, which is at the bottom of the thumb into the wrist. You can have that associated with pinching most commonly, as well as gripping and grabbing. It’s usually a deep ache in the bottom of the thumb that gets worse with activity and better with rest.

The other thing we think about is a condition called De Quervain’s tenosynovitis, where the tendons on the top of the thumb are very irritated. It’s usually worse with lifting your thumb up or trying to lift things with your thumb up as well.

When we get into the injury causes, the two most common things we think about are fractures at the bottom of the thumb and the scaphoid bone, or fractures of the larger bone in the wrist called the radius.

If you’d like a more accurate diagnosis, please come see one of our board-certified hand surgeons at OrthoNebraska.