Your fingers are important to you. Obviously. They work hard every day as you type, show your emotions, gesture to support your words, or wipe away your children’s tears.
However, it’s when they don’t work the way they are supposed to that you really appreciate their importance. Rheumatoid Arthritis and other types of arthritis can affect them in a way that makes all of the above activities difficult to perform. An everyday movement is accompanied by pain, stiffness of joints and swelling.
There is a number of things you can do.
Most people start with OTC pain relievers, but if you’ve tried them, you probably feel they don’t work as well as you need them to. You might have tried a new diet as well, as removing some foods can reduce pain, inflammation, and joint stiffness. In our experience, what can help you the most is visiting our Miami physical therapy services. An experienced Certified Hand Therapist (CHT) employs a variety of techniques and tools to relieve hand pain, including developing activity and exercise programs, designing custom-fitted orthotics and managing pain and swelling.
While your fingers will benefit greatly from hand therapy in Miami, you can employ some techniques at home in parallel with your Miami physical therapy program. All you need is 10 minutes a day, your fingers and specialized exercises from your hand therapist. Gentle exercises and stretching will help you reduce the pain and strengthen the muscles around the joint, taking some of the burden off of it.
You will find many useful exercises for Rheumatoid Arthritis online; however, there is no one-size-fits-all finger exercise program for people suffering from RA. That is why we advise you to use hand therapy in Miami, during which an occupational therapist will propose a program designed for your hands and your type of disease. After a careful examination of your condition, they will set you up with a customized exercise plan to make sure you achieve the best possible results and get back to your normal life.
