Gripping Problem

[Flash Jackson]

The Tibetan child that made the outfit I'm wearing didn't need hands. You shouldn't either.

[colonelpong]

WTF is wrong with you people??? Its page 2 already and not a single masturbation joke?

[Teh El Macho]

For starters, I’ve already seen a doctor; but he said he was “not exactly sure” but he thought it was a tendon issue. He gave me a prescription for Naproxen Sodium (435 mg twice a day) and I’m supposed to take it until I see him again in a couple weeks.

My problem is mainly in my right hand the ring (and sometimes middle) finger tends to swell and I’ve been having reduced grip strength. It’s especially bad in the morning; I often can’t even make a fist. It generally gets better throughout the day; but it often remains swollen and a bit stiff.

I say often and sometimes because the symptoms vary greatly in severity from day to day. I’ve had these symptoms for quite some time; but it normally lasted no longer than a day or two before returning to normal. It’s just in the past month that things have gotten bad. I took some time off BJJ to give the hand a rest (and because it was frustrating not being able to hold a grip; but that hasn’t seemed to help any.

Does anyone have any thoughts as to what the problem could be? Hopefully somebody has heard about this before and I won’t have to spend months of appointments to get a correct diagnosis.

I have a similar problem but in my left hand. I get pain in the distal and medial joints of the little and ring fingers.

When it becomes problematic, I tape the ring and little fingers for additional support. It's just arthritis setting in - plus gripping puts a lot of stress in the fingers.

The only way, at least for me, that the pain goes away is by taking over a week off (either from BJJ or from grip exercises.) But it always comes back. This is specially true in the mornings. What helps me a bit is to put my hand in hot water (hot enough to cause some discomfort, but not enough to boil the **** out of your hand.) Then I massage the joints with icy-hot.

For example, I let the faucet run hot water on my hand for a couple of minutes. Then I apply icy-hot. Then, I pinch grip the affected joint with the thumb and index, pinching, twisting and putting pressure back and forth.

Stretch the hand and move the fingers constantly throughout the day (as in tapping with the fingers or opening/closing the hand). That helps me a lot. Also, I've been doing lots of grip exercises lately (lately with a concentration on the ring and little fingers using the CoC IMTUGs #3 and #4, lots of reps followed by massage after each set).

That seems to help withstand the pressure in the fingers (or at least to build more tolerance).

Maybe you may want to supplement with glucosamine for the joints. But I'm affraid that type of pain is chronic and won't go away for as long as we do any form of heavy gripping.