Trigger finger is a condition in which one of your fingers gets stuck in a bent position. Your finger may bend or straighten with a snap — like a trigger being pulled and released. Trigger finger is also known as stenosing tenosynovitis.

Trigger finger is compression of the tendons at the base of your fingers. It can occur in any digit, it can occur in the thumb and the index, the long finger. And it’s identified primarily by pain.

The word “trigger” comes in because one of the traditional symptoms that they have is that the finger locks. It locks, usually in the morning, and then one has to unlock and then it clicks. So they call that trigger finger.

But not all patients have that true locking that they can present with pain. They can present with a stiff finger, a stiff finger that you either can’t bend or can’t straighten. Or it presents with locking. In treating this condition, often seeing a local massage therapist for muscle tension, a local personal trainer for muscle strength and a physiotherapist for release and conditioning is a good option.  

Some patients in advanced stages have a finger that’s, in fact, bent that cannot straighten out. Usually it’s painful. Most of the pain is at the base of the digits in the palm. Some patients feel it in the small joints of their hand, and in fact, they think that the problem comes from the small joint when in fact the problem is coming from the lower base of the hand.

The reason why we get this is not really very well understood. We don’t know what sets this in motion, but essentially the tendon travels through a tunnel at the base of the finger. We call this tunnel the pulley system of the fingers. It starts at the base of the finger and goes to the end of the finger.

As there’s constriction that occurs, either from swelling of the tunnel, or swelling of the tendon, the tendon gets tight within that tunnel and can’t glide as well. So patients present with limited motion, pain, or as described earlier, that triggering/locking effect.

Trigger fingers occur spontaneously; exactly, it’s idiopathic, like many conditions in the hand. It’s not due to anything you’ve done, anything you’ve eaten, or anything you may have taken in the past; it’s spontaneous. Local Orthopedic Surgeon

Most of it occurs in patients around their fifth or sixth decade, although they can occur in 30-year-olds or 80-year-olds. There tend to be slightly higher predominance in women, again, for reasons why we don’t know. It tends to occur in all digits, so there’s not one digit they’re more likely to occur in than the other.

And it can occur in your left hand or your right hand independent of your hand dominance. Usually it starts with one finger. It can have a traumatic onset in some patients where they sustain a relatively minor injury, and a few weeks later they start locking their finger and thusly attribute their injury to the cause of the problem.

It’s probably more like the straw that broke the camel’s back, where the injury just precipitated this condition that was more likely to happen even if the injury didn’t occur. Seeing a local Physiotherapist is an option for treatment as well.

If you have more questions about trigger finger, or think you may be experiencing trigger finger yourself, you should seek attention by your  Physiotherapist

Presenter: Dr. Bertrand Perey, Orthopaedic Surgeon, New Westminster, BC

Local Practitioners: Orthopaedic Surgeon