Video and Transcript: Treating “Tech Thumb” Pain

Hi, everyone! Dr. Orit Hickman here, Pain Science Physical Therapy. I'm the owner and a physical therapist in the clinic. 

And, I wanted to talk to you today about tech thumb. And so, this is a term I've been using in the last couple weeks in the clinic because I've had a few patients come in and complain about thumb pain. And, when we start to track back as to when it is the thumb hurts, low and behold, it's when they're on their cell phones for long periods of time. 

So, this is an overuse injury, which means that if you're using your thumbs a lot and you're doing an increased amount of scrolling on your phones, messaging — you know text messaging — maybe spending lots of time on your tablets, using your thumbs [and] not realizing you're doing that, that might increase your thumb pain. But, the most common is really using your cell phone. It's a small device and you keep it pretty close to your body. 

So, ways that we would treat that, first of all, would be rest [and] bringing the phone so that it's positioned in such a manner that you would use your fingers instead of your thumbs. Also, avoiding this sort of down position, which really is also good for headache and neck pains, FYI. And then, if rest doesn't fully take care of symptoms, there may be some strengthening and some stretching that needs to happen. 

So, I'm going to give you three stretches to try. First is taking your hand and making a fist, but you want to put your thumb inside the fist. Take your hand out in front and then you drop your wrist down. So, what this looks like from the side is just like this. You have your hand. You take your thumb down in the front. You make a fist. You stretch your arm way out, and you drop your thumb down. What you should feel is a nice, stiff stretch right over the top of the wrist. And so, when you do this stretch, it may be very uncomfortable initially. And, you want to do this for about 30 seconds three times in a row and maybe three to five times during the day. Definitely do both hands. Don't just do the hand that hurts. In fact, compare! You might find that the stiffness and tightness is the same on the side that doesn't hurt either. So, that's the first stretch.

The next stretch are two stretches that are for the wrists and elbows as well. So, if you're having elbow pain that may also be associated with using your device for long periods of time, these are good stretches for that. So, the first one is to bringing your hand out in front, palm is up and fingertips are down as you pull and stretch. And, you should feel that pull all along the top front part of the arm. Again, this is the stretch. 

Now, a lot of times, patients will come in saying, “Well, this is how I'm doing the stretch. I saw this on the internet.” And, the problem with that is the muscles that you’re trying to stretch cross the elbow, and if you don't twist and bring the palm up, you don't get that full stretch of those muscles as they cross over the elbow joint. 

Now, the flipside is true for stretching over the top of the wrist. So, that’s bringing the whole hand down, and you should feel the pull over the back side of the wrist when you do this. And, what you don't want to do with any of these stretches is you really don't want to pull on your fingertips. You're really trying to pull more on the hand itself. So, you should get a stretch all along the top. And, make sure that the elbow is not bending when you do this. That the elbow stays straight. So, these are three common stretches that we’ll give patients who are dealing with tech thumb.

Let me know how those work. Definitely doing them for a period of time, maybe about one to two weeks, before you seek out care would be a good idea. But, if these don't help, then you definitely, definitely want to try to get in with a physical therapist. There may be more going on and more that we want to treat. 

Thanks! Have a great day. Let me know if you like this video. If you do, I would love a thumbs-up. Have a great day!