What are the clinical manifestations of rheumatoid arthritis of fingers?

Finger rheumatoid disease refers to rheumatoid disease in the finger joints. Since rheumatoid arthritis can cause great pain and affect the normal function of joints, and hands are used more frequently, suffering from rheumatoid arthritis in the fingers will cause great inconvenience to patients, both in life and at work. Therefore, once you find that you have rheumatoid arthritis in your fingers, you must go to the hospital for treatment in time and do not delay, so as to ensure better treatment results. There are many clinical manifestations of rheumatoid arthritis in the fingers. Morning stiffness, fear of cold, proximal and ulnar deviation, muscle atrophy, pigmentation, etc. are all symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis in the fingers. Once these conditions are found, you must seek medical attention in time!

1. Morning stiffness

In the early stages of rheumatoid arthritis, patients often experience stiffness in their fingers when they wake up in the morning, which gradually eases after activity. As the disease progresses, morning stiffness becomes more severe and lasts longer, up to more than an hour.

2. Fear of cold

The patient's fingers are particularly sensitive to cold, and they easily turn white, purple, numb, feel tingling, or even painful when exposed to cold water. This is because the fingertip arteries are prone to spasm when exposed to cold, which is medically known as Raynaud's phenomenon.

3. Proximal

The most common site of rheumatoid arthritis is the proximal interphalangeal joint (near the trunk side), and the metacarpophalangeal joint may be invaded, but the distal interphalangeal joint is never invaded. Many non-specialist doctors often misdiagnose hyperplastic arthritis of the distal interphalangeal joints and even Kaschin-Beck disease as rheumatoid arthritis.

4. Scale deviation

The thumb side is the finger side, and the little finger side is the ulnar side. In the early stages of rheumatoid arthritis, fingers can be seen deviating toward the ulnar side, while in normal people, most of them deviate slightly toward the ulnar side, especially the little finger.

5. Muscular atrophy

Rheumatoid patients often have phalangeal muscle atrophy in the early stages, and the swollen proximal interphalangeal joints form what are medically called "fusiform" or "bean-shaped" changes.

6. Color sinking

On the dorsal side of the affected interphalangeal joints, pigmentation is often seen that is dark brown (black). At the same time, local skin may become keratinized and thickened.

7. Symmetry

The prominent feature of rheumatoid arthritis finger joint damage is the symmetry of both hands. Sometimes in the early stage, only the proximal joint of the middle finger is swollen, but the damage should be symmetrical between the left and right middle fingers, and rarely unilateral, which is common in traumatic arthritis and tuberculous arthritis.