Hotline to offer handy answers on how to deal with sore hands

The man has raging tendinitis in his hand, the result of stretching his thumb tendon as he lifts his newborn, combined with the repetitive action of pinching diaper tabs over and over.

"Congratulations," says a smiling LeAndra Brush, certified hand physical therapist at The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital. "You've been changing diapers. Good man."

And sore man. There's a fancy name for the condition — deQuervains tenosynovitis or thumb extensor tendinitis — and there are lots of different ways someone can get it, most not involving child care. Someone working an assembly line or a mechanic who turns the same bolts over and over also can have repetitive hand injuries.

Carpal tunnel syndrome, compression of a nerve as it goes through a channel into the wrist, sometimes resulting in numbness, also can result from doing the same thing over and over with the hands in the wrong position. So can "trigger finger."

There are other types of hand problems as well, including nerve compression, arthritis and trauma. And they're all the subject of Saturday's Deseret Morning News/Intermountain Healthcare Hotline. From 10 a.m. to noon, Brush and Scott Nobis, certified hand occupational therapist at TOSH, will take phoned-in questions about hands, from how to heal them to how to protect them.

Hand specialists see a lot of inflamed, irritated tendons, called tendinitis. And they're frequently called upon to help strengthen and retrain hands after surgery.

Besides overuse injuries, they also see a lot of arthritis, primarily either osteoarthritis, where the joint wears out from use, or rheumatoid arthritis, where a joint's lining is inflamed and painful.

Therapy for both overuse and arthritis may be similar, focusing on joint-protection techniques, in some cases splinting to avoid continually annoying the sore spot and rest for the overworked area.

Splinting can take two forms: either static, with no moveable parts, or dynamic, which has basic static splinting with "rubber bands or fish lines or whatever's needed to help move the hand in a particular position." Brush says that helps move the hand as if the tendons were firing while letting them rest. "It moves it so the patient doesn't."

Pain control is, of course, important too. It can range from simple over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen to stronger prescription medications. And heat and ice, alternating, can provide relief, as can use of relaxation strategies.