Hand Pain

S

svlin

New User
I did a search already and couldn't find responses or descriptions of a similar thing.

I have pain on the 4th finger of my dominant hand about 1 inch away from the wrist towards the fingers (seems to be a small bony bump there). It seems to ONLY hurt when I hit forehands and it gives me sharp pain initially and goes away after about 10-15 minutes of warmup. Does anyone else feel a bump there on their dominant hand?

I have read about wrist pain such as TFCC among others but it doesn't seem to be the same as the typical injuries. Anyone experience the same pain before?
 
Only a visit to a hand specialist will result in the exam that can really diagnose your problem.

But since you state that it occurs where there is a small "bump", I wonder if it is the hook of the hamate bone you are feeling.

hand_guyon_canal_anat03.jpg
www.eorthopod.com/images/ContentImages/hand/hand_guyon_canal/hand_guyon_canal_anat03.jpg

It may be hard to tell from this picture, but the hamate bone has a part that is raised up into the lower palm, and viewed from the side has a shape like a "hook".

Only conjecture here, but you may have a bruise over that area. By any chance do you play with a leather or relatively hard grip? If so, you might do better with a cushioned grip, at least for a while.

In the sports world, an actual fracture of the hook of the hamate is the fate suffered by a golfer who strikes his club against a rock. Baseball players also suffer fractures here, and apparently some tennis players as well: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/97813-overview
 
I actually am getting pain right here shown in this pictures, it is located on the top of the hand:



I had a match today and had extreme pain in this area of my hand within the first 15 minutes...it subsided for about 1 hr (took 200mg of Ibuprofen before the match). After about an hour the pain came back and I could no longer hit a forehand. Either way, I plan on going to see a doctor this week and try to get forwarded to a hand specialist.
 
Last edited:
First post on forums, normally I just browse around but ran into this which caused me agony and stopped me from hitting for 3 months....

Well here is my story and what worked for me(I am in no way saying not to see a specialist)Around 4 months ago I began to experience the same pain in the same place just around an inch from the wrist heading towards my 4th finger, now looking back it seems rather obvious, but I had just changed my forehand technique around a year ago. I'm not sure if this will help you also, but as I was making contact with the ball, unknowingly I was twisting my hand CCW. Once I stopped, pain subsided.
 
Thanks for posting...interestingly it seems I can reproduce the pain by holding my racket in the forehand position and lay the wrist back as if I am about to make contact with the ball. If I use my left hand to begin to rotate the tennis racket counter clockwise I feel pain in the exact spot in the linked picture.

I haven't changed my motion as of late, but I had a practice in which I think I might have injured my hand by gripping too tightly b/c it was 90 degrees with 80+ percent humidity and my grip was slippery.

To the original response, I use a Volkl PB10mid with 2 Tourna Tac overgrips over the original DNX synthetic so it should be fairly soft in comparison to a leather grip.
 
Does anyone else, when you run your finger down between your 3rd and 4th metacarpals on the top of your dominant hand feel a bump?


Well I got Xrays and they were negative...though I am not convinced. I haven't played now for 10 days and there is still pain, but I wasn't able to convince my general doctor to forward me to a hand specialist on my first visit.
 
I lost at least a year messing around with general orthopedic docs before I finally went to a hand specialist. He diagnosed the problem within 5 minutes. And none of this vague "tendinitis" bull. "Tendinitis" is code for "I have no idea what the problem is..."

You need to really push for the referral...
 
It's odd if this is a metacarpal boss that it didn't turn up on x-ray, since this is a bony abnormality. So either they missed it looking intently to rule out a fracture, or maybe this isn't really a boss. It would definitely be worthwhile to have that x-ray reviewed, and still a good idea to see a hand specialist.
 
Thought I would update my own thread given that I haven't yet found a solution.

I went to a specialist and he told me that after doing an MRI (which came up negative) and doing a number of x-rays, that it looks like the 4th metacarpal on my hand is slightly shifted. The conclusion to all of this was he told me to do physical rehab. I took about 9 months off of tennis and did a lot of grip strength type exercising and came back into tennis slowly, even changing rackets and strings.

However, the other day I was playing doubles and I hit one shot that set it off again. I have had pain in the same spot now for 2 weeks. Because this pain is not in the wrist itself, I have no idea how rehab would help my situation...in addition, I am dumbfounded by how everything came up negative, MRI, multiple X-ray sessions when I have so much pain that occurs in this spot when hitting a forehand.

It is mysterious because I have not encountered anyone playing tennis that has experienced the same injury.
 
svlin said:
Thought I would update my own thread given that I haven't yet found a solution.

I went to a specialist and he told me that after doing an MRI (which came up negative) and doing a number of x-rays, that it looks like the 4th metacarpal on my hand is slightly shifted. The conclusion to all of this was he told me to do physical rehab. I took about 9 months off of tennis and did a lot of grip strength type exercising and came back into tennis slowly, even changing rackets and strings.

However, the other day I was playing doubles and I hit one shot that set it off again. I have had pain in the same spot now for 2 weeks. Because this pain is not in the wrist itself, I have no idea how rehab would help my situation...in addition, I am dumbfounded by how everything came up negative, MRI, multiple X-ray sessions when I have so much pain that occurs in this spot when hitting a forehand.

It is mysterious because I have not encountered anyone playing tennis that has experienced the same injury.
Click to expand...


I'm not sure if I know of tennis players that have your injury because I'm not sure what your injury is...however I know of myself and 2 other tennis players who do suffer from CarpoMetacarpal Bossing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

kevsaenz
Hand Pain
Replies
2
Views
745
kevsaenz
kevsaenz
G
Hand Pain Explanation?
Replies
9
Views
5K
Gravitation
G
B
Wrist pain Chiropractor?
Replies
11
Views
8K
Brocolt
B
H
HAND PAIN
Replies
4
Views
2K
kramer woodie
kramer woodie
S
Backhand wrist pain
Replies
5
Views
6K
splink779
S
Back
Top