Document Type

Abstract

Publication Date

2-2021

Academic Year

2020-2021

Abstract

Introduction: Pain, clicking, and locking are common presentations in patients with hand conditions and more often than not, the cause is a trigger finger. The common practice to treat trigger fingers is a corticosteroid injection. The purpose of this study was to determine how these injections affect patients in the short term.

Methods: Patients who underwent corticosteroid injections from June 2019 to September 2019 was the population of study. Phone interviews were conducted with patients each week for 3 weeks following their injection. Patients were questioned about pain and triggering symptoms. Other demographic data was collected to be reviewed as well.

Results: A total of 452 patients were interviewed over the course of the study. 82.4% of patients reported complete pain relief after 3 weeks, as well as 16.3% having partial relief and 1.2% with no change in pain. Within the same time frame, 65.9% of patients had complete triggering relief, while 30.4% had partial relief and 3.5% had no relief. Overall, it took an average of 6.6 days for patients to achieve complete pain relief and 8.1 days to achieve complete triggering relief.

Discussion: This study shows that a majority of patients will experience pain and triggering relief 3 weeks following a corticosteroid injection. Most patients began to see improvement within the first week in regards to pain and improvement in triggering lagged behind the relief in pain.

Language

English

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