23 February 2021
 Categories: Health & Medical , Blog

You don't always realize the importance of your thumb until you sprain it. Once you pull on and irritate those ligaments and tendons in your thumb, something as simple as gripping your pencil becomes painful, and you suddenly realize how important your thumb is to your everyday life and habits. While resting a sprained thumb will do a lot of good, if you want a faster and more thorough return to normalcy, it is a good idea to also see a physical therapist. Here are some of the exercises and treatments they may prescribe to help treat the injury.

Flexions

With your thumb, flexion refers to the bending of your thumb towards your palm, and also to the bending (or closing) of the joints that are at the middle of your thumb. Flexing your thumb may be a little tough after a sprain, but it is important to do this in order to re-strengthen the ligaments. A physical therapist can guide you through an exercise in which you flex your thumb further and further each time. Eventually, they may apply some counter-pressure to your thumb as you do this, which will make the exercise more difficult and also help strengthen your thumb even further. 

Thumb Oppositions

If you pay attention to how you use your thumb, it is often to meet with your opposing fingers in order to grip something. This motion can be really difficult after a sprain, though. Your physical therapist can help you regain the ability to touch your thumb to your other fingers — a motion known as opposition. They may have you start by only touching your pointer with your thumb, and then progress to reaching your other fingers over the coming weeks as you regain strength, 

Cold Laser Therapy

There's a common misconception that physical therapists only help guide patients through exercises. This is certainly a big part of what they do, but they also administer other healing treatments. One of these is cold laser therapy, which involves aiming a cool laser light at your injured body part for a few minutes at a time. The laser basically stimulates your tissues to heal. Cold laser therapy works really well for sprained thumbs because the injured ligaments and tendons are located so close to the surface of the skin and are readily accessed by the laser.

A sprained thumb can be more serious than you would think! Luckily, with the help of a physical therapist, recovery can be just around the bend.