Hundreds of patients come into our doctor’s offices in Macomb, Warren, West Bloomfield, or Howell every year for hand injury or hand infection treatment.
For as often as we use them, it’s surprising to see how delicate our hands actually are. The hands consist of 27 bones and 34 muscles, each of which is susceptible to an injury or sprain.
Hand injuries usually are due to a sudden accident or sustained use over time. Regardless of the reason, the pain of a hand injury can be disruptive to your everyday life.
Arora Hand Surgery specializes in treating injuries to the hand, wrist, forearm and elbow. We offer comprehensive treatment for a variety of issues, sudden or otherwise. Contact one of our hand doctor’s offices, located throughout southeast Michigan, to set up an initial consultation about any injury you may have.
Contact UsAnimal bites account for almost a million accidents each year. Most of these bites are from dogs, but bites from cats, rodents, and wild animals occur as well.
Animal bites are dangerous because the bacteria of the animal’s mouth gets into the system, possibly leading to an infection. Infections can be as minor as some swelling and soreness for a couple days, or as major as life-threatening.
The best treatment for an animal bite is to immediately treat the wound with antibiotic ointment. This will kill any offending germs that may be left behind from the animal. After the initial treatment, you should monitor the wound for any further evidence of infection. If the infection worsens, seek medical help immediately.
Hand injuries from snowblowers or lawnmowers are some of the most devastating. Severe cuts, ligament tears and broken bones are the least of a person’s worries. Oftentimes, entire fingers or hands are completely cut off. If you are mowing a lawn or removing snow, it’s imperative to turn the machine off if you must work around the blades.
Skin burns don’t only happen around open flames. There are multiple ways a person can burn their skin, and to varying degrees. Fire is a common cause, but people can be burned from coals, boiling water and even friction.
The severity of burns are categorized into four degrees.
First-Degree Burns
These are superficial burns that sting, but they won’t last more than a week or so. General medication and creams are all that’s needed to treat these.Second-Degree Burns
These burns may result in blistering and peeling of the burnt skin. They hurt more and last longer, but the treatment is the same as it is for first-degree burns.Third-Degree Burns
The skin is completely killed and will need to be surgically removed. These burns require a skin graft, and the affected area will be put into a protective splint while the skin grafts heal.Fourth-Degree Burns
The burn penetrates all layers of the skin to the tendons or even the bone. This is the most severe kind of burn and requires surgery, skin grafts, and possibly amputation.
Much like lawnmower and snowblower accidents, accidents due to manual or electric tools such as power saws often result in severe and deep cuts, the amputation of multiple fingers, or sometimes death. It’s imperative that you always pay attention to your work around manual and electric tools and that you follow all safety instructions.
Injuries to the nail bed most often occur with damage to the rest of the finger. When a fingertip is damaged in an accident, it causes the nail bed to splinter or completely fall off. Severe damage to the nail bed can result in the deformed growth of the nail. Surgical options to replace the nail are available if need be.
When a finger is struck by an object, say a baseball, and is driven back, it can cause an injury to the tendon which allows us to straighten the finger. Mallet finger is most common in the middle, ring, and small fingers of the dominant hand.
Learn More About Mallet Finger
Nerves are extremely sensitive and, unfortunately, it doesn’t take much to injure or damage them. When this is the case, the nerve doesn’t send the correct signal to or from the brain, causing the surrounding area to not respond correctly or lose feeling. The most common symptoms of a nerve injury is numbness and tingling in the affected areas.
Learn More About Nerve Injury
The thumb is arguably the most important digit on our hand, and because of that it has the most muscle surrounding it. It’s also the digit most susceptible to being sprained. The most common form of thumb sprain is the thumb being bent backward, tearing the muscles around it.
Infections of the hand can be as trivial as a swollen, pus-filled cuticle which goes away after a short time or as serious as a deep-rooted infection that requires surgery. Some of the most common forms of hand infections include felons, deep space infections, and tendon sheath infections.
Felons
These are ball-shaped infections at the tip of the finger. Treatment usually requires surgery to drain the finger and the surrounding tissues.
Deep Space Infections
The muscles and bones of the hand have a lot of empty space between them. When an infection occurs in these spaces it’s called a deep space infection. Treatment for these require surgery to drain the infected area.
Tendon Sheath Infection
If a puncture wound occurs near one of the joints, it could lead to an infection of the tendon itself.
Unless it’s caught early, or it’s a shallow infection, the most used treatment is minor surgery to drain the infected area.
Replantation refers to surgically reattaching a body part that has been severed. Prosthetics may be used as well.
When a piece of the hand is completely removed, it’s called an amputation. Amputations can happen as a result of an accident or by the decision of a medical professional. Reasons for amputation could be to stop a dangerous infection or cancer from spreading. Amputation is usually a last resort for doctors.
