About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Lifestyle and home remedies
By Mayo Clinic staffSelf-care measures can help relieve pain, improve mobility and ultimately increase your independence. Here's what may help:
- Perform range-of-motion exercises. Exercises that move your thumb through its full range of motion can help improve your joint's mobility. Your doctor or a hand therapist can demonstrate the specific techniques that are best for you.
- Modify household equipment. Consider purchasing adaptive equipment, such as jar openers, key turners and large zipper pulls. Enlarge the grasp on garden tools, kitchen utensils and writing devices — or buy items with large handles. Replace traditional door handles, which you must grasp with your thumb, with levers. Adaptive equipment is often available by catalog. Ask your doctor or hand therapist for recommendations.
-
Apply heat or cold. Your doctor may recommend using heat or cold — or alternating between them to help relieve swelling and pain and to soothe your joints.
Heat can help ease pain, decrease joint stiffness and relax tense muscles. Different forms of heat work better for different people. Experiment with using hot packs or electric heating pads on their lowest settings, soaking your hands and wrists in bowls of warm water or paraffin wax, or simply taking a shower or bath.
Cold can be effective for reducing pain during flare-ups or after you've had too much physical activity. Applying ice packs or soaking your hands in cool or cold water has a numbing effect that can be effective for dulling hand and wrist pain.
When applying heat or cold, take care not to burn yourself or get frostbite.
- Use other joints when possible. For instance, instead of grasping a doorknob to open a door, push it open with your shoulder.
- Educate yourself. Assess what causes your pain and avoid it. The more you know about your condition, the better you'll be at recognizing the motions that produce pain — whether immediately or hours later.
- Swigart CR. Arthritis of the base of the thumb. Current Reviews in Musculoskeletal Medicine. 2008;1:142.
- Arthritis of the thumb. American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00210. Accessed Feb. 2, 2010.
- Deune EG, et al. The patient with hand, wrist, or elbow pain. In: Current Rheumatology Diagnosis & Treatment. 2nd ed. New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill Medical; 2007. http://www.accessmedicine.com/content.aspx?aid=2729561. Accessed Feb. 2, 2010.
- Dias R, et al. Basal thumb arthritis. Postgraduate Medical Journal. 2007;83:40.
- 5. Arthritis: Base of the thumb. American Society for Surgery of the Hand. http://www.assh.org/PUBLIC/HANDCONDITIONS/Pages/ArthritisBaseofthe.aspx. Accessed Feb. 2, 2010.
- Osteoarthritis. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. http://www.niams.nih.gov/Health_Info/Osteoarthritis/default.asp. Accessed Feb. 3, 2010.
- What is arthroscopy? American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00109. Accessed Feb. 3, 2010.
- Looking after your joints when you have arthritis. Arthritis Research Campaign. http://www.arc.org.uk/arthinfo/patpubs/6055/6055.asp. Accessed Feb. 3, 2010.
- Wajon A, et al. Surgery for thumb (trapeziometacarpal joint) osteoarthritis. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2009:CD004631.
Find Mayo Clinic on