Gout can appear at various joints in the body, including, if not as frequently, in the fingers. The gout fingers are also called chiragra and can be located at different joints of the wrist or finger joints. About 5% of all gout attacks occur in the base joint of the thumb.
The gout fingers are usually a great burden for the affected persons, since in an acute attack, it is essential to protect and immobilize the gout fingers. Chronic courses of the gout fingers often lead to the appearance of gout tophies on the fingers. These hardened deposits additionally restrict the movement of the fingers.
Symptoms
Gout fingers express themselves with the typical symptoms of gout disease. These include severe pain in the affected joints and an inflammatory reaction. This includes the typical signs of inflammation, such as swelling, overheating and redness.
The base joint of the thumb is often affected, but other joints of the fingers or the carpus can also be plagued by complaints. The complaints often result in a temporary restriction of movement. In the case of a chronic course of the disease, those affected can only move and use their fingers to a limited extent due to the frequent occurrence of gout tophies.
Gout knots in the fingers
Gout nodules in the fingers typically occur during the chronification of gout disease. This occurs when the gout remains untreated for a long time and is therefore rare nowadays. The gout nodules are deposits of degradation products of the excessive uric acid in the body.
As a result, the joints in the finger joints are increasingly damaged and destroyed. Furthermore, gout tophies can also occur. These deposits occur, for example, along tendon sheaths of the finger muscles, are painless, hard and shimmering white. Depending on the severity of the gout nodes and the resulting limitation, the gout fingers can be operated on and the gout nodes removed if necessary.
Initial stage/signs
Gout fingers are not deformed, swollen or permanently restricted in their mobility from the start. In the initial stage, there are usually recurring attacks of gout in the fingers, accompanied by severe pain and swelling for a few days. These symptoms usually subside after a short time and a period without symptoms follows, during which the fingers are fully functional again. The first signs of gout fingers always include local redness and overheating of individual joints. Depending on the severity of the symptoms, they are often initially well localized to the joints.
