- All right, thumb pain.
Many people will experience thumb pain,
not so much here,
but oftentimes right by the wrist at this joint right here.
- And the good news is you can self-treat this easily
and in a hurry.
- That's right.
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All right, there's a very good reason
this joint of the thumb gets very sore,
it's because it takes an awful lot of force
with gripping, twisting,
any activity you do with your hand.
So.
- The pain is likely associated in this area with arthritis,
and it's common from overuse,
and it's normally on your dominant hand.
- That's right.
All right, let's take a close look at this joint
that can create so much pain
you really do not wanna use your thumb or hand.
It's right here, the CMC joint.
We've got this bone
and you can see there's not a great deal of movement here.
But as you get wear and tear on that joint from arthritis,
or maybe some bone spurs, oh, can it cause pain.
Or if it's subluxes a little bit, in other words,
it kind of pulls outta joint.
And that's good because we can usually get it back in,
causing the pain to go away quickly.
Alright, so if your thumb is so sore
that it just hurts to move it and it's very tender,
you may need to put a brace on it.
Doesn't matter what type, anything that you can find
that you can put on and it's gonna support the wrist,
cuz that's where this joint is,
it's close to the wrist,
and it just reminds you to protect it and it limits motion.
Another option you can do is get some coban tape,
it stretches, it does not stick to your skin
but it does stick to itself.
I gotta admit, taping your hand is not easy to do.
If you have problems with it, just go buy a brace,
but it is real custom.
And you know what you do is you just work it back like this.
I suggest the wider tape,
Mike has a narrower one inch.
And you simply rip it, ooh, like that, and it'll stay on.
Don't get it too tight.
It does a nice job of supporting.
- The first technique to treat this issue
is massaging what's called the thenar eminence.
So it's kind of the muscular area around your thumb here.
It's a big beefy muscle belly
considering it's just in your hand.
But you just kind of dig in there
and move around whatever area is tender.
Some people might be more down here,
some people might be more on the front of their hand.
You just, I like to kind of pinch and just move around.
That just, mine doesn't hurt, but, oh, I feel that.
- Yeah, it's one of those things
if you've got tight, sore muscles,
maybe some knots in those muscles,
you will feel it,
and it's one of those things that should hurt,
but hurt so good.
And when you're done,
have a result of a better feeling thumb.
Now if you do this and you find that this hand is sore
and this thumb is sore and you're getting nothing,
but you're getting good results here
but you're causing pain in this hand,
a real nice option is if you happen to have a massage gun
that reciprocates.
Oops that came right out, it's meant to do that.
This is a ball head.
And there's actually a number of heads
you can get with these massage guns.
This is our Q2, it has five heads.
For this particular treatment,
I would recommend either this round one, maybe that one,
or possibly this bullet head.
Because the nice thing about this bullet head
in this situation, and you use whatever works best for you,
is you can get into that thenar eminence.
So, what we're gonna do is get this thing going,
and I'm gonna work it here.
And you got a nice grip for the other hand,
so you're not gonna get slower muscles there.
Now you can change the intensity simply by changing,
this is much more aggressive than this.
You're probably gonna start out sideways, work it here,
working the palm here, sideways,
and you can work right into that muscular belly
that works really well.
You're not gonna get down here on the joint
cuz you're just gonna beat that joint up
and irritate it and get sore,
and maybe say bad things about me.
So we don't wanna make do that for sure.
And you can do the other parts of the hands as well.
The nice thing about having one of these
is you can use it on any part of your body,
particularly with all the heads.
So it's a very powerful gun.
But in this case it works
because you can really control the intensity in a low level.
- And the last treatment option.
Now, if this feels good, it's for you,
if it doesn't feel good, don't do it.
You're actually gonna perform some traction
on the phalanx here.
So you're gonna grab down by the joint
and you're gonna pull away from it,
and you can kind of move it around.
You can also move your wrist.
Just do what feels good.
- Right.
So again, this is that when I mentioned
the joint is subluxed or actually outta joint a little bit,
this is a technique I use, it's very similar to this,
a little more simple.
I simply took my thumb on top of that phalanx,
I pushed down, and I pull like I'm pulling the skin
away from that joint.
So you're pushing down and you're pulling,
you can see the skin be distracted.
And I did this and it actually, the pain went away
from about a level seven down to a level one or two.
And I worked this a little bit that evening.
The next day it was gone and it's still gone.
And that's what one of the things that motivated me
to do this video again.
Mike, you got anything to say?
- Who knew the pull my finger joke could become useful.
- Good luck.
Thumbs up, huh?
Thumbs up.
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