Hi I have lupus discoid , sle and sjorgens . The hospital made me a thumb splint to protect the joint any one else had this ? Did it work and bring inflammation down ? Can anyone recommend anything which helped with swollen hand joints please .
Thanks everyone .
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Heather53
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I have thumb splints, wrist splints and arthritis gloves, all from the occupational therapist at the hospital. The wrist splints give most support, but are painful to wear when the swelling is bad. Sometimes even the thumb splints are too much. The gloves don't offer much support, but they give a bit of compression and increase the blood supply to the hands, which does seem to help a bit, and apparently aids healing/slows erosion. All of them are a bit impractical - you can't use your hands for anything much (I can't cook, wash, clean or use a keyboard comfortably in any of them) but someone has suggested wearing the gloves while I sleep, which I haven't tried but intend to...
Use the pressure gloves when you sleep. Wear rubber gloves when you wash up and hold your hands under the very hot washing up water for about 5 mins. (As long as it isn't too hot for you of course.)
Look up some hand exercises on the web.
Mine are always much worse when I have a cold/flare. ;o)
Hello, I have inflammatory Arthritis in both Trapezious Joints in my thumbs and the pain is frequently unbearable when moving them. I find that the hard thumb splints provided by the Hospital do help to ease this only a little. Stretching exercises have helped and strengthening the hand muscles as well.
However, I do restrict the use of these splints as have thrombotic problems with my hands and do not want them fixated too long in one position.
I have been offered an operation to remove the joints which they tell me is 'usually' successful in removing the pain but I am sceptical about that because of the APS,Lupus and circulatory problems I have
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