Diagnosis and treatment of wrist pain

  With the gradual aging of our country and the improvement of people’s living standard and the increase of various sports activities, joint pain caused by wrist joint diseases and trauma is becoming more and more common. Because of the complex anatomy and fine structure of the wrist joint, once damaged, it is very difficult to repair, and the wrist joint is a very important transmission joint of the human body, almost all the activities of the hand have to be completed through the wrist joint as a fulcrum, so the pain caused by wrist joint disorders has a huge impact on life and work.  The wrist joint is composed of the ulna, radius, eight carpal bones and five metacarpal bones, involving the lower ulnar carpal joint, radial carpal joint, intercarpal joint, midcarpal joint and carpometacarpal joint, among which the radial carpal joint and lower ulnar carpal joint are the most commonly injured and have the most complex anatomy. There are more than 20 ligaments surrounding the joint, which maintain the stability of the wrist joint and related motor functions. Injuries to any of the bones or ligaments may cause pain in the wrist joint, so the causes of wrist pain are varied, and vary depending on the patient’s age, gender, and mechanism of injury, etc. Some of the common causes of joint pain are as follows: 1. These patients are generally more accidental injuries in life, because they do not get enough attention, often miss the best time for treatment.  2, cartilage injury Patients have a clear history of trauma, such as a fall when the palm of the hand on the ground, etc., resulting in a huge pressure on the articular cartilage instantly, and produce cracks or even the whole piece of tear, free.  3, due to strain Due to the large amount of activity, the joint can not withstand or repeatedly repeated activities, resulting in strain on the muscles and other soft tissues around the joint, which can lead to pain.  In addition, there are many other causes of wrist pain. Once a patient has wrist pain, swelling and restricted movement, rest is the first thing to do, and do not massage or massage to avoid aggravating the injury. Due to the anatomical characteristics of the wrist joint, CT or MRI examinations are required to understand the specific condition to help diagnose and then decide on a treatment plan.  Currently, there are two types of treatment for wrist pain: (1) Traditional: Open suture surgery, which involves cutting into the joint capsule to expose the entire injury so that the damaged tissue can be repaired under direct vision. (2) Wrist arthroscopic surgery: Using several small incisions, the lens is placed inside the joint to directly see the lesion inside the joint and make precise treatment of the lesion. It can reduce the chance of joint stiffness and tendon adhesions. Therefore, in addition to gradually replacing traditional surgery, wrist arthroscopy can further help the surgeon to clearly see the intra-articular structure, treat the damage to ligaments and cartilage, and improve the quality of surgery. Due to the complex structure of the wrist joint, it is difficult for the surgeon to accurately locate the point of pain and injury during the examination, but arthroscopy allows both direct visualization and contact inspection of intra-articular structures such as cartilage surfaces and ligaments, and can detect injuries at all levels. Some studies have shown that the accuracy of arthroscopy in diagnosing early wrist injuries is 98%, and the diagnosis of unexplained joint pain can be over 70%. It has been suggested that wrist arthroscopy be performed in patients who have had undiagnosed wrist pain for more than 3 months.  Wrist arthroscopy can be performed if the diagnosis is not clear after a systematic and comprehensive examination of the wrist injury, or if the patient needs to undergo microscopic surgery. Mainly used for: 1. Triangular fibrocartilage disc injury: Before the use of carpal endoscopy in clinical practice, the diagnosis of triangular fibrocartilage disc injury mainly relied on carpal arthrography. However, according to reports, the incidence of false positives and false negatives is very high, not as reliable as the results of arthroscopy.  2, articular cartilage lesions: various causes of intra-articular cartilage lesions such as trauma-induced cartilage injury, exfoliative osteochondritis, degenerative osteoarthrosis, etc.  3, intra-articular ligament injury and joint instability: Wrist ligament injury can cause chronic pain and instability of the wrist joint. Clinical diagnosis is very difficult. Wrist arthroscopy can directly observe or cooperate with probe examination to find the exact site of ligament injury and perform debridement or ligament repair.  4, chronic synovitis: for chronic synovitis of the wrist joint with unclear diagnosis, wrist arthroscopy can not only observe the synovial pathological changes but also accurately clip the diseased synovial tissue for biopsy.  5. Free body: cartilage, osteochondral free body or foreign body found by X-ray and arthroscopy can be removed by arthroscopy, and the cause of its occurrence can be found at the same time. If there is no corresponding lesion on the articular cartilage surface, synovial lesions should be considered and synovial biopsy is feasible.  6, septic arthritis: septic arthritis of the wrist joint is the same as septic inflammation of other joints, which can be treated by arthroscopic irrigation.