- Alright, we are gonna show
you the best two options to get rid of trigger
finger, fast and easy. - From clinical and Brad's
own personal experience. These techniques work. - That's right, I'm going to share. Alright, let's talk about the
symptoms of trigger finger. They're very consistent with most people. I have it on my middle finger, when I flex my middle finger, when it's active, it'll
lock right about there and then I can no longer extend it up. It locks up and if I really
work hard on it, it'll pop up. Sometimes I have to take
this finger and go up. It can be painful, it can be very painful and most of all it is annoying. - Some interesting facts
about trigger finger, it commonly onsets around age 58. It is two to six times more likely to happen in women versus men. And the common areas affected
the most are the thumb and your ring finger. - There you go. Now I'm gonna show you a simple anatomy example or demo on why trigger
finger acts like it does. It'll make you more successful
in getting rid of it. So what we have is the
muscles in the forearm and their tendons run through your carpal tunnel
and up to the finger. We'll look at this finger
and connects up in here. When that muscle contracts,
the finger bends. Now what happens is the tendon, as it runs through this area of the palm, right under the big
knuckle there is something they call literally the pulley and the tendon needs to
slide through that pulley as you flex your finger. So let's take a little model of this. The yellow rope is example of the pull- or of the tendon goes down,
connects up to the muscle. Now that pulley or the tendon
has to slide back and forth. Pull, Mike, pull, there we go. Now we're exaggerating here. But if it does not
slide through the pulley because the tendon can
actually get scar tissue and get some calcium deposits, there's other reasons
that cause this tendon not to go through the pulley smoothly. We're gonna go to this next
and explain it clearly. Alright, so we actually have a model. It really shows why trigger finger locks up like it does. Here we have the tendon, here we have the model of pulley. Now if everything is working good, when you flex and extend
your finger like this, the tendon goes through
the pulley very smoothly. Now what can happen like we talked about, a nodule or something forms on the tendon, we're not gonna get into what it is. But here we have a model of
the nodule by the red tape. So what happens is it
gets caught in the pulley. Now watch what happens
if you keep working it, it goes through and it clunks and this is exactly how it
feels and your finger clunks. Now if you work one of the two
exercises I'm gonna show you, the nodule gets smaller
represented by the blue tape and you can see, oh,
it goes through easier. Little bit of a clunk, less
trigger finger, less clunk. And once you get that
nodule completely out, you go back to the normal
motion of that tendon through the pulley and voila and it works. I use this technique all the time 'cause mine comes and goes
over the last few years and it's very satisfying
for me to have it work. We want to share with you. - So the first treatment option to try is to take your good hand and place it on the base
of the trigger finger typically around your first knuckle here. You're gonna push down with
your thumb in the region where you can feel it helping the most. Then what you're gonna do is
flex your finger and extend it. Now some people it may be
a little lower down here, some people may be up. Just find the area that
helps you be able to flex and then extend your finger and do five to 10 repetitions of this. - Right. And you'll actually do
this throughout the day, every hour or two. And you'll find it'll go away
quickly the more you do it. Now the second option is
actually a massaging technique. I'll put it here. Here's my actual trigger finger and I'll put my thumb here
backing it up with my hand here. And I'm gonna push in deep. This is a fairly aggressive and I go, I usually make
circles that either go right to left, up and down. Sometimes I circle it, but I'm literally trying to
break up that scar tissue around that tendon as well as the pulley. And I'll do that simply for
maybe 15 seconds at the most. And I will get there. We got a little trigger, there we go. It's locking. Let me work it a little bit here, get that broken up so I can
get a good free response. Little better. Now if I kept working that, it'll continue to get better. There is no pain with the little bit of symptoms I have right now, so I don't worry about it. But when it gets painful
and it locks up tight, that's my favorite. Then I'll also use the technique
that Mike used as well. So any questions about that? (Bob and Brad laugh) - No! - If you do have a massage gun, it can be an alternative to the massaging. I would use either the pointy head, which is more aggressive. Start out with the round
head though for sure. The air head is really
not shaped right for it. So I would stick with
one of those two heads. Simply get on it. You're probably not gonna go straight on, although you could try it. I would go at an angle
this way, work it this way. And the big benefit of this is if you have arthritis in your thumb that you're working and
you're creating pain and a sore thumb, this will eliminate that
and it's a nice option. Mike, do you have anything to say? - The whole purpose of these exercises is to get that nodule from the big red one we showed earlier down
to the small blue one, allowing it to glide throughout the day. - That's right. Trigger finger and trigger finger no more. (Mike laughs) Alright, getting serious. It does work and I think
it's a valid treatment. However, Mike has some tips if
there's something different. - So if you have trigger
finger in your thumb, we do have a separate video on that because the treatment
options will vary a bit. So click the video link
here on the screen. - Good luck. ♪ Bob and Brad the two most famous ♪ ♪ physical therapists on the internet ♪
