TENDON INJURIES

Extensor tendon injuries
Extensor tendons, located on the back of the hand, allow you to straighten your fingers and thumb. These tendons are attached to muscles in the forearm. As the tendons continue into the fingers, they become flat and thin. In the fingers, these tendons are joined by smaller tendons from the muscles in the hand. It is these small muscle tendons that allow delicate finger motions and coordination.

How are extensor tendons injured?
Extensor tendons are just under the top surface of the skin, directly on the bone, on the back of the hands and fingers. Because of their location, they can be easliy injured even by a minor cut. Jamming a finger may cause these thin tendons to rip apart from their attachement to bone. After this type of injury, you can have a hard time straightening one or more joints. Treatment is necessary to get back use of the tendon.

Flexor tendon injurie?
The mucles that bend or flex the fingers are found in the forearm and are called flexor muscles. The flexor muscles are able to move the fingers through cordlike extensions called tendons, which attach the muscle to bone. The tendons of the flexor muscles that lead to the fingers and the thumb begin just beyond the middle of the forearm.

The thumb has one long flexor muscle, and the fingers each have two flexor muscles. One tendon attaches to the middle bone of each finger on the palm side of the hand and bends the fingers at the base and second joints. The other tendon attaches to the bone at the tip of each finger on the palm side and bends all three finger joints.

How are extensor tendons injured?
Deep cuts on the palm side of the wrists, hand, or fingers can injure the flexor tendons and nearby nerves and blood vessels. The injury may appear simple but is actually more complex. When a tendon is cut, it acts like a rubber band and its cut ends pull away from each other. Because many cuts happen while the fingers are bent, the cut ends of the tendon move even further apart as the fingers are straightened. A tendon that has not been cut completely through may still allow the fingers to bend, but can cause pain or catching and may rupture. When both tendons are cut completely through, the finger joints cannot bend on their own.

Treatment
If the cut ends of the tendon can be brought back together, healing begins. Because the cut ends of a tendon usually separate after an injury, it is not likely that a cut tendon will heal without surgery. Your doctor can advise you on how soon surgery is needed after a tendon is cut.