I’m old. Five days ago suddenly my right thumb felt sore. Like if you’re young and you play flag football and the next day you thumb is sore. But you’re young and in a day or so - the pain is gone. But in my case there wasn’t even an event like flag football. The soreness came out of nowhere.
As the days passed - it was getting better but today it started to hurt a bit again. For you youngsters - aches and pains become less of an idiom an more of an annoyance as you age. To put my mind at rest I googled “thumb arthritis”. I figured that’s not what I have but I should google to be informed. My mind is the opposite of being at rest.
Thumb Arthritis > Fact Sheets > Yale Medicine
“Thumb arthritis is unbelievably common, and if we look at the X-rays of people in their 50s, 60s, and 70s, 30 to 50 percent of that population can have it,” Dr. Luo says. “But not everyone will have symptoms that are severe enough to require any treatment.”
Well at least the following made me laugh. Evolution can be like a tech bro.
Xuan Luo, MD, a Yale Medicine hand, shoulder, and elbow surgeon, draws from evolutionary history when he explains thumb arthritis to patients.
“If you look at certain ancestors of ours, not all of them had opposable thumbs [meaning they can be placed opposite the fingers, which is what allows us to grasp objects]. This is a relatively new evolutionary invention,” Dr. Luo says. “And like any new feature on your car or computer, it’s not always tested well and tends to wear out first. As we get older, that CMC joint in particular often wears out, causing pain at the base of the thumb.”
I’m not sure if it’s from years of sleeping on concrete, malnutrition, or both—but I am in terrible pain all the time. When I stand up, sit down, sit up, or do any kind of strenuous thing like holding my arms above my head. I am 32.
Thumbs aren’t the only recent update that is still under beta testing. All of the innovations that made us bipedal weren’t made to last as long as our current lifespans- that’s why half the population has bad knees or back problems before they hit 50.
that CMC joint in particular often wears out
What wears it out? Heavy gripping? Making it pop(click)? Over stretching?
I expect adopting certain self-preservatory lifestyle habits could mitigate it, but understanding what precisely causes the wear is necessary to know what specific activities to try to reduce.
Human backs and horses legs are both really fucking prone to problems
That sucks. Do you have a hitchhiker’s thumb at all? (Slight or even 90 deg bend in thumb)
Here’s hoping I got the hand joint genes from the side of my family that lived to be 95-96 and were still building barns, and not the side that had gout and died in their 60s.
(Slight or even 90 deg bend in thumb)
No. At first it just felt sore. Now there’s just a tiny bit of discomfort. I took a couple painkillers a couple hours ago. I’ll google about how to reduce and ideally avoid more pain. Ageing problems with knees, backs, and hips was old news to me. Thumbs are a whole new ballgame.
Here’s hoping…
I hope you do well too.
