Wrist Pain Diagnosis Methods

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There are several disorders that might result in wrist and finger pain. Some of these are Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Tendonitis, Arthritis, Ganglions, common broken bones and more. But how do you know what the defect is? What are wrist pain diagnosis methods that your doctor will use?

Of course there are several legit reasons why you could have wrist or thumb pain that does not require to go to a doctor. So when do you know you need to go to a hospital or doctor? The first thing you should ask yourself is what the probable reason is. If you do not know what it is, and when you have severe pain for several days, than that is a good reason to visit your doctor. Other reasons are uncommon symptoms like loss of strength in the fingers/hand or function loss.

When you visit your doctor, there are several things he will take in to account. Important is the age of the patient. When you are older, there is a bigger chance on disorders like Arthritis. When you are younger, there is a bigger chance on Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. He will ask you if you did strange things with your hand for instance, hitting someone or something. Working behind your computer increases the diagnosis of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

Most often you can see if someone has arthritis because of the crooked growing of the fingers. Because this will not always happen, your doctor will ask for an X-Ray in various positions (mostly 2 or 3). On an X-Ray you can only see bones which makes a diagnosis of Arthritis possible. An X-Ray does not hurt and only takes a few minutes.

When you do not have Arthritis, another wrist pain diagnosis method is a MRI. An MRI is able to make pictures of the mucles and nerves inside your body. In this way your doctor can see of their is an obstruction of the median nerve which causes this syndrome.

Another wrist pain dagnosis method is Electromyography (EMG). Whith this method your doctor will put a small device on your arm and a sensor on the palm of your hand. An EMG detects the electronic potential of your muscles and nerves. With a normal functioning nerve, there should be no difference between the potential. But when the nerve is obstructed the sensor will notice a difference in potential.

Most of the times you will visit your doctor, he will not ask for additional exams. When the symptoms are severe enough, these are the tests your doctor will ask for to diagnose the wrist pain.