Healthy Hands

Is hand pain interfering with your ability to do all you want — and need — to do? Find out how you can ease the pain and limitations of arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, and other hand ailments.

Hands are unavoidably vulnerable to ailments and injuries. When they happen, your daily routine can become an ordeal, ordinary tasks can become a struggle, and simple pleasures are put aside. Fortunately, almost every hand problem can be successfully treated. Pain can be significantly reduced. Mobility and dexterity can be regained.

This Special Health Report will give you an empowering understanding of your hands’ mechanics, the diseases that compromise their function, and most important, what you can do to treat, lessen, and prevent the major threats to your hands’ health and strength.

Do you suffer with arthritis? The report will brief you on advances in quelling the symptoms. You’ll find out about the growing choices in medications, as well as promising complementary therapies and alternative remedies.

The report will tell you about treatments that offer relief from carpal tunnel and other “pinched” nerve syndromes. You’ll learn what causes “trigger finger” and how “writer’s cramp” is cured. The report will give you the key questions to ask yourself — and your doctor — before considering joint replacement surgery, and much more.

So, enjoy life hands-on. Order your copy of this Special Health Report now.

Prepared by the editors of Harvard Health Publishing in consultation with Philip E. Blazar, MD John B. and Buckminster Brown Professor of Orthopedic Surgery, Harvard Medical School; Division Chief, Hand and Upper Extremity, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Program Director, Harvard Hand and Upper Extremity Felloship and Gayle B. Lang, MS, OT, CHT Clinical Specialist in Hand Therapy, Outpatient Rehabilitation Services, Brigham and Women’s Hospital. 41 pages. (2025)

Does knuckle cracking cause arthritis?

Cracking your knuckles may annoy those around you, but it probably won’t raise your risk for arthritis. That’s the conclusion of several studies that compared rates of hand arthritis among habitual knuckle-crackers and people who didn’t crack their knuckles.

The “pop” of a cracked knuckle is caused by bubbles bursting in the synovial fluid. The bubbles pop when you pull the bones apart, either by stretching the fingers or bending them backward, creating negative pressure.

Even if knuckle cracking doesn’t cause arthritis, there’s still good reason to let go of the habit. Chronic knucklecrackers are more likely to have swollen hands and reduced grip strength. And there are at least two published reports of injuries suffered while people were trying to crack their knuckles.

Reviews

No reviews have been left for this newsletter. Log in and leave a review of your own.