Trigger Finger

For more than two months, I had been having pain in my left hand mid finger. Pain would be more pronounced when I tried to close my palm tightly. If I managed to close it into a fist, my mid finger somehow got locked up without it being able to regain its normal straight position after opening the palm. I needed to manually pull it back to regain its normal position.

So one day when I met my cardiologist for regular check-up, I told him that I may be suffering from arthritis because of aging. He asked how I came to that conclusion and I demonstrated my locked mid finger to him. He was quick to point out that it was not arthritis. He simply told me that the tendon in my finger has tightened and a surgery would be needed to cut it. He asked me to see an orthopedic.

 

When I met the orthopaedic specialist, at one glance, he did not hesitate to tell me that I was having Trigger Finger, a term I did not know before. For permanent solution, he strongly recommended surgery which only takes 5-10 minutes.

 

Surgery was quickly arranged. As usual, hospital would optimise such opportunity for commercial consideration: an operating theatre and three nurses in attendance and everybody in full operating attire. True to what the orthopaedic said, the relief was instantaneous. The locking of the finger was gone once the cut was made!