hey everybody it's Doctor Jo, and today I'm going to show you my top seven
treatments for finger and hand pain. so let's get started.
so the first treatment is just going to be finger taps. this can be anything from
arthritis, maybe a slight hand injury, an overuse injury things like that where
you've just got some aches and pains in the hands and the fingers. so finger taps
are as easy as it sounds. it's just tapping the fingers and the thumbs
together. so what is really important to do is open up wide each time. so I'm
going to take, I'm gonna start with my thumb and my pinky, and I'm gonna come
together and then open all the way up and then I'm just gonna move up the
fingers and just tap and come back. so you really want to open up that palm
every single time. so it's not this, it's coming back open and really closing and
making that movement. so when you're doing these, you can just start off with
maybe two to three sets of just going back and forth, like one up and one down
would be one set, and then kind of work your way up from there. it just really
depends on how much pain you're having, if you've had an injury, how long you've
had the injury. so it's kind of your judgement of how many you need to do.
then the next one is going to be thumb taps or thumb movements. so you really
want to get that thumb joint too. a lot of times when people have that hand
finger pain, it's in those deep joints there especially on the thumb here. so
with the thumb you're gonna do it a couple different ways. so now this time
keeping kind of the fingers straight you're just going to bring that thumb
all the way over to almost that pinky joint at the hand there, and then come
back up. so maybe do that about five times. and I have some arthritis in my
hands, I've also had surgeries surgery on both sides of my hands my left and my
right, so I can I can really feel this stretching my thumb area. and then after
that you're gonna go to here. so you're going to open up and come down.
so just almost like you're a a pac-man eating it or like that. up and down. and
then the last one for the thumb I'm gonna turn a little sideways so you can
see, you're gonna come and then down in that direction. so
you're kind of moving that joint in all those different directions. and I'm going
to turn my hand so you can see where it's kind of going forward, and then down.
so again maybe just starting off with five reps of each. you can do a couple
sets, two to three times a day. it really just depends on what's going on with
your hands and then how's it feeling. so then the next one is going to go into
the wrist because when you're moving the wrist all those wrist muscles come down
into the fingers in the hand. so you really want to get that wrist moving as
well. so just make a little fist with your hand. if you want to rest it on a
table or the side of a chair so you can have your arm relaxed you can. if holding
it up is comfortable, that's fine. I like bending my elbows, some people like doing
it straight out. it's completely up to you, but all you're gonna do with this is
just bend it down as far as you comfortably can,
and then come back up as far as you comfortably can. this one you can do a
continuous motion just kind of going back and forth. if you want to pause and
maybe do like a three to five second hold at each side you can. just get that
little bit of an extra stretch in there. so if you want to do continuously I'd
say maybe start off with like 10 reps and then work your way up, several times
a day. and if you want to do like a little hold with that three to five
seconds maybe do five each way just so you're not overworking that wrist. this
is really just kind of loosen everything up get that pain out of there. so then
the next one is going to be massaging the hands. so it's really important to
kind of get the blood flow in there get the circulation going.
massaging always kind of helps you can do it a couple different ways. you can
start here and just kind of stretch or push the blood flow back, and each
fingers kind of going like this. you can also just start at the palm and like do
some circular motions here just to kind of get that massage which is really nice.
but you can also use equipment to do the massaging for your hands and the fingers,
and there's a lot of great products out there and the folks at Breo Technology
sent me there iPalm 520s hand massager. and this is a really cool thing. you can
see it almost looks like a mitten to be able to put your hand in there. and what
I really like about this particular one is you can plug it into the wall, or it's
also battery-powered so you can put the batteries in there so then you don't
even have to have the cord with you. and what this does is it uses air
compression that's almost like I'd say like a an air bag in there that kind of
fills up with air and then it gives you compression to help increase that
circulation. and there's also a heat component in there as well, and if you
have arthritis in your hands like I do, you know that that feels really really
good. it's a nice component. there's also three different settings on there
there's actually four I guess because one is kind of an alternating setting. if
you have a lot of sensitivity in your hands this is very firm pressure. I
really like it it's kind of like a massage and when you have a massage at
this you know not a whole lot of pressure not really getting much benefit
out of the massage. so if you have some sensitivity to your hands, you don't
really like a lot of pressure and things, this might not be quite for you. you can
see here I've had a hand surgery it was a long time ago, but I used the lightest
settings since I've had surgeries and it feels good, lots of pressure, but it feels
good. I've also done the highest setting and I can still tolerate it, but it's
just not what I would want to do every time. so the lightest setting works great
for me, so you can try all the settings and see and if it's too much. while it's
going on there's a little button here that releases the pressure, so it's not
like you just have to sit there and take it, you can release that pressure or you
can just turn it off and start over and the heat has different settings as well
so that's really cool. make sure you take your jewelry off when you're doing it
don't put the jewelry in there, but all you do is you just kind of set it in
it's got some grooves in there that you can kind of feel where you want to set
your hand, there's kind of a little square there where you want to put the
palm of your hand in there. and you want to go in this way you don't want to go
this way because there's also little acupressure points like look those
little dots that you feel that puts that pressure on there. so once you take your
hand back out you're gonna have little dots on your hand that's completely
normal. that's part of it that's that acupressure pressure, and just it'll go
away after you know five to ten minutes. there's a timer setting
as well which is also really nice. I'm gonna turn it on just for a little bit
so you can kind of hear and see what's going on, but again what's really cool
about it is you can just kind of as you go change the settings and so you kind
of hear that. but what's nice again it's is pretty portable. so I can just hold it
in my lap if I'm working on the computer I can set it on the side and still do my
work. I can kind of hold it up in the air like that, you probably don't want to. you
want it to sit nice, but so you can see here you know it's it's it comes up and
then it goes down a little bit. and then you feel this like rolling sensation
where it goes on to your fingers as well. so it's the nice combination there's one
that's good goes up and down and I like that. and again if you feel like it's too
much later, maybe right there was a little bit too much for me. I can press
this button and you can hear how the air comes out. so it's it's a really really
cool product I like it. it does a great job of getting that comfort into your
hand and get that increased circulation by pressure. you can see those a little
bit of dots right there, but again that's completely normal and that'll go away as
you go. so if you're interested in purchasing the ipalm 520s, make sure
and click on the link up there. so the next treatment is just a full finger
stretch at the joints. and so again this one's a pretty firm kind of pressure so
just use whatever is comfortable for you. so this time what I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna take my whole finger and just gently pull it back this way. so if you
want to set it on a table or on your hand and just pull back like that you
can. that just gives some nice stretch on the inside there and just stretches
everything out. since this is a stretch, you want to hold it a little bit longer.
I wouldn't say you necessarily have to do a full 30 second stretch since it's a
smaller finger, but but maybe like a 10 to 15 second hold. so just really getting
that nice stretch in there, and then go all the way up up and down your fingers.
so you want to do all your fingers and you do your thumb as well. so just
getting that nice stretch in there pulling it up, but just to comfort. don't
don't get to where it's pain in there. this right now is when I'm pulling up I
get that nice kind of you know stretchy
burning feeling, but there's no pain in there. and so that's nice so just kind of
going through all those joints and that's going to get closer to the to the
hand and the fingers right there. so that's also really nice. so then the next
one going into some exercises. is you can just take a towel and roll up the towel.
you can use a tennis ball. you can use a lacrosse ball. you know those are a
little bit firmer than I like, but if you like that that's fine because all you're
doing is just kind of getting something that you can squeeze on. and it's just
like it sounds. I call it a towel squeeze, and so you're just squeezing that towel.
getting that you know starting to work those muscles in there. and then so this
one I'd say it's probably maybe about five second hold. so just holding giving
it a good squeeze for that five seconds and then relaxing. so you don't want to
squeeze so hard that you're gonna make your hands hurt, so if you want to when
you're first starting off maybe just do twenty to thirty percent of what you
feel like you can do and then kind of work your way up. but just maybe do five
to ten of each of those. and then the last one is then going to exercise going
into the extension motion. so that one was the flexion motion, this one's going
into extension. so you can just take a rubber band. it doesn't have to be a
fancy rubber band it can even be one that you get off the newspaper if you
still get the newspaper, but you're gonna wrap it around the tips of your finger.
try and make sure to get it low enough so it doesn't pop back out on you, but
your fingers are going to be together like this, and then you're just gonna
open them up as far as you comfortably can. so you can see I'm not going all the
way open but the key is when you come back go nice and slow. so I'm not just
doing that that's not really working those muscles, but really controlling it,
especially coming back in. so since you're doing an exercise with some
resistance with this, I would just start off with maybe ten, one to two sets a
couple times a day, and then you can kind of work your way up from there just to
make sure that you're getting the exercises and the fingers in the hands.
so if you have you know some tightness, some pain, some uncomfortableness,
that'll help make it stronger as well as getting all that pain out of there. so
there you have it, those were my top seven treatments for finger and hand
pain. if you're interested in purchasing the Breo ipalm 520s hand massager,
make sure you click the link up there, and don't forget to
subscribe by clicking down there. and remember be safe, have fun, and I hope you
feel better soon.