main complaint

she has been experiencing pain in her right thumb since a month ago.

initially, she was pruning with high branch scissors and felt a stabbing pain when she exerted herself. the pain is in the MP joint. her fingers don't bend easily, and she can't put any strength into them. it feels like it's stuck. she was unable to grip the clothespins.

the orthopedic surgeon diagnosed a spring finger in the thumb, and she went to treatment once a week (electrotherapy, heat, pastes) and received steroid injections twice. the pain eases immediately afterwards, but she thinks it is not a fundamental treatment.

her husband searched for our clinic on our website and came to our clinic because he felt the same way.

visual observation and palpation

perhaps because she had been in pain for a long time, the entire skin of her palm felt very tense. since the pain was caused by the contraction of the adductor and opposable muscles of the thumb rather than the tension of the flexor muscle group of the thumb, i focused on the palmar tendon membrane in the palm of the hand.

(the palmar tendon membrane covers the palm of the hand and allows the skin of the palm to move less than that of the dorsum of the hand, making it possible to grasp things such as iron bars)

(1) maternal adductor muscle

(2) maternal opposable muscles

Acupuncture was applied to these muscles (40mm gauge 0.14mm).

1st pain scale 10→6
the pain was reduced to about half. she recovered to the level where she could stop using clothespins.

2nd treatment: 6→3
pain decreased significantly. the pain that had been bothering her for a month was relieved, although she still felt a tugging sensation in her thumb.

3rd treatment: →2
sticking feeling also eased, and after the 4th treatment, the pain and sticking feeling disappeared.