If you’re an avid video gamer, you often feel a thumb ache while or after video-game bingeing. And because you take each play as seriously, most of the time you just can’t help but ignore it until it becomes too painful that you can’t even grip a game console, hold a joystick, or press a button or key anymore.
De Quervain’s Stenosing Tenosynovitis is Gamer’s thumb to console, PC, and mobile gamers, and is an inflammation of the protective sheath that wraps around the tendons that move your thumb — the abductor pollicis longus and extensor pollicis brevis. Repetitive use of your thumb causes these tendons to rub against each other and become irritated until the sheath is thickened, resulting in pain and inflammation. It’s a common cause of thumb pain in gaming but may also occur in other situations that involve repetitive gripping, grasping, clenching, or twisting of the wrists. Other causes may include:
If you try to place your thumb across your palm, fold your fingers into a fist, and then move your wrist towards your pinky, and you have thumb pain, then you’re likely to have a Gamer’s Thumb — this is the Finkelstein Test, a maneuver to confirm if you're really suffering from Gamer's Thumb. The common symptoms are:
An Opportunity Lost…
These days, many young individuals find it hard to tear themselves away from video games as many of them have already built a life out of video gaming, and the last thing on their minds is losing not in the game but in having the opportunity that these video games can offer them due to injuries and more so from as little as a thumb pain.
Take the case of Call‑of‑Duty gamer Thomas “The ZooMaa” Paparatto of the New York Subliners who has struggled with the thumb injury which even required surgery to alleviate the pain. Not only that his thumb pain has caused him stress and anxiety while playing through it but also forced him to retire at the young age of 25.
But still life full of options and possibilities…
And as young as he still is with full of ambitions and a never-say-die attitude, he always looks forward to seeing opportunities where he can utilize his abilities and still engage in the game that he has played with and put his “heart and soul into every single day for eight long years,” and takes this situation as "one door closing and another one opening," Thomas says in Twitter.
If you’re already dealing with thumb pain, there are few tricks that you can go about fixing a Gamer’s Thumb. But first of all, as an immediate remedy if you're already dealing with a swollen thumb, you may apply the RICE protocol (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) and then STRICTLY follow the following:
It’s pretty hard to restrain yourself from doing the things that you love doing just because of thumb pain, especially if this gives you the life that you’re happy living with and have been wanting since. Here, we give you insights on how Recovapro can help you recover from thumb pain.
Recovapro is an innovative tool that provides therapeutic vibration that can stimulate healing and recovery once you’ve got yourself an injury like thumb pain. If you’re like Thomas who has undergone surgery, Recovapro can alleviate post‑surgical pain that you may have by flushing out the pain substances through increased blood flow and massaging effect. The vibrations received by the healing tissues can prevent or minimize the development of scars, which can cause pain, adhesions, and stiffness by preventing its formation right from the start, or breaking the already formed ones while realigning the newly forming tissues. Vibration therapy can stimulate the growth of collagen, which fills up the gaps caused by the damage.
To know how, click here: How to Fix Gamer’s Thumb with RECOVAPRO