Osteoarthritis of the Hand

Exercise, including strengthening exercise (working against something like a weight, gravity or exercise bands) is considered one of the key treatments for most aches and pains, even if the exercise doesn't directly involve your hands.

Exercise comes in many shapes and forms and there is no ‘best’ exercise. Often it is best to think of the most effective exercise as the one you enjoy and will actually do. Current recommendations on exercise and how often we should be looking to do it can be found here: Understanding Exercise

Exercise, even lifting weights or attending a gym, is safe for your joints. Bricca et al. (2019), looked a number of other experiments on exercise and the effects on osteoarthritis of the knee (consider this as an equivalent to your hands). Their findings were that exercise, in whatever shape it takes, is safe and does not harm knees. In fact, they suggested that exercise may even improve the cartilage health alongside other benefits to general physical and mental health.

We have included a series of exercises at the bottom of the page that will help you move forwards with managing your hand complaint.

Some people will choose to manage their pain with pain relief, whilst some may choose to avoid medication. Bathing or exercising your hands in warm water may also be useful in helping with some of the pain.

Weight loss is recommended as something that is important for the management of most aches and pains. Losing weight is difficult and we understand that.

You may be thinking “how is losing weight going to help my hands?” and it would be a good question if you were thinking it. Often people will think that simply putting more weight through their joints is the reason why they get problems and being closer to their ideal body weight will simply stop their symptoms. Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy. It is worth knowing that fat cells are very active cells and one thing they do is produce chemicals that can have a harmful effect on the joint cartilage, which in turn can be a factor in joint-related pain.

By looking at diet, exercise, sensible goal setting and establishing a good support network, a weight loss journey is more likely to succeed and the benefits to your hands are more likely to be influenced by the journey you take to lose weight rather than being lighter.

If you would like some support to help you with your weight loss journey, please contact our partners at Feel Good Suffolk  or Active Norfolk.

It would be lovely if we could simply take pain relief or exercise our way out of all the aches and pains that we face in our lifetimes, wouldn’t it? For a number of issues, that might be all you need to do and you will end up feeling better, however it is often useful to take some time to think about some of the reasons why things might be sore.

If you think of your pain as your hand/s trying to say that it is struggling to do what you want it to do or the way you want to do it, by looking at the things that make it sore, you may be able to consider what you can do to help yourself. For example, if you find that your hand/s is always worse on the days that you are inactive for long periods or the days you haven’t taken your breaks at work, then perhaps your hand/s are saying they’re struggling and you might find trying to be more active with your hands or adjusting how long you do things for may help.

By looking at what’s making your hand/s sore and asking yourself ‘how can I do that differently’, you can find that the answers come more easily than you would have thought. Making small changes or adapting things can have big results and this is often the best way to start your recovery.