Oh girl, no he didn't! Oo wee, ouch. Hey everybody, it's Dr. Jo. I've gotten two different emails
recently, one from Justin and one from Cindy. Cindy was asking DeQuervain's Syndrome and
Justin was actually asking about Blackberry thumb. They are basically the same thing.
Then tendons in your thumb get very irritated from an overuse injury. So texting is really
going to irritate those tendons. So let's get started on some stretches and exercises,
and hopefully get that feeling better for you. The first two exercises are going to
be stretching the two tendons that go to your thumb all the way out to the wrist. What you
want to do is hold your hand up straight, and take your thumb and reach over to your
pinky and come back. You can alternate fingers. Go all the way down and then go back the other
way. You can do this in a continuous motion, but don't go fast. You want to get a little
stretch while you are doing it. So this is not exactly what you want to do. You want
to go nice and slow, get that stretch, get that movement, get those tendons moving back
and forth to help increase the circulation to help the healing process. Then you can
actually go into a stretch. Just stretch those tendons. Bring your pinky down, and grab it
with your thumb, and hold it there for about 30 seconds. After you do that for 30 seconds,
relax, and do that 2 more times. So a total of 3 times stretching out that tendon. Now
it's equally important to stretch your wrist because these tendons run through that wrist
canal. So the next stretches are stretching your wrist. If you want to check out a whole
bunch of wrist exercises, you can check that out on my hand and wrist stretches video.
What you want to do now is just take your hand, don't push too hard into pain, just
to a stretch. Hold that there for 30 seconds, and then reverse it and stretch that way.
Again holding it for 30 seconds. You can do this against a wall, but you probably want
to start off with just using your hand so it's not quite as much pressure. After you
do each of those for 30 seconds, 3 times each, then you can start strengthening a little
bit. I like to start off with some veggies or soup. Something light, this is about a
pound. Once it gets easier, you can start adding weight, but you really want to start
something not too heavy because you don't want to irritate these tendons, you just want
to work them out. You can start off with going down and up, and just alternating back and
forth. Just start off with about 10 of these. You don't want to do a whole lot, and you
don't want it to be painful. So if it's painful, just try it without it, going back and forth.
You can rest your arm on something if you need to or you can just hold it up. After
that, you want to switch, and your going to go up and down this way. This is probably,
going down, is where you are really going to feel that stretch. So if you want to take
your thumb and go this way or you can grip it on the side. Going up and down. 10 of those,
all directions. Just start off with one set, and when that becomes easy, then you can build
up your sets. Next find some rubber bands. I've got two different kinds. You probably
want to start off with a small rubber band just to give you a little bit of resistance.
Then you can move up to the bigger rubber bands. I'm going to start off with the small
one. Put it around all of your fingers including your thumb. Almost like you are doing a little
puppet show, and then take it and stretch it out and slowly come back in. It's just
like those resistive bands, you don't want the rubber band to squeeze your fingers back
in. You control the band. So you can go this way with the thumb or you can open up all
your fingers going out and in. But again, just start with about 10 of them, and if that
doesn't cause any soreness or pain, then the next day you can start building up your reps
and your sets. Last one, if you've got a ball, this is a racquet ball. You can use a tennis
ball, you can use a big squishy foam ball, but all you're going to do is squeeze. Hold
it for about 2 seconds, and then come back out. This is going to be a lot stronger than
like maybe a NERF ball. So you might want to start off with something a little softer
than a racquet ball because this is pretty thick. So same thing, just start off with
10, and then work your way up. There you have it. So if you are a big texter, not like me,
or if you do a lot of repetitive movements with your thumbs, these exercises should help.
If you have any questions, leave them in the comments section. If you would like to check
out some other videos, go to askdoctorjo.com Don't forget to follow me on Facebook and
Twitter, and remember be safe, have fun, and I hope you feel better soon!