No, but I always wondered why you always hear about large joint replacements and I never seem to hear about fingers and toes (actually, this is the first time I've heard of it).

WE'LL SEE........THE DR HAD A NEW MACHINE THAT DID ULTRA-SOUND ON MY KNUCKLE JOINTS AND GAVE ME A COUPLE INJECTIONS......MAYBE THAT WILL HELP.
HE SAID THE ULTRA-SOUNDS MACHINE SHOWS HIM EXACTLY WHERE TO GIVE THE INJECTION......HURT LIKE A ________!
YOU FILL IN THE BLANK.....I JUST SWITCHED DR'S AND THIS NEW YOUNG GUY IS BEING QUIITE PRO-ACTIVE AND I LIKE THAT.
SENT ME TO HAVE A SPLINT MADE TO WEAR AT NITE.....MY OTHER DR TOLD ME MONTHS AGO THERE WAS NOTHING HE COULD DO.....I WOULD HAVE TO LIVE WITH IT!
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DR CAN MAKE....I WAS REALLY NERVOUS ABOUT SWITCHING AS THEY ARE IN THE SAME GRP...NOW I REALLY DON'T CARE!

Hey Vicki,
yeah good question and that ultra sound machine to detect where to inject sounds like a great idea and probably more accurate. The usual practice is for the doctor to examine the x-rays to see how much space is left in between the joint.

A long time ago I saw a rheumy and I remember her saying that finger joint replacement was not very successful or words to that effect and not having surgery was advised.

Now that was several years ago, I don't know how advanced things have come along since but it isn't a common joint replacement you hear of.

Yes we do need our hands and it was something I was so worried about in the early days as my fingers were bad.

I think just like we are meant to exercise to strengthen the muscle surrounding our other joints. We can do things for our hands too.

I do finger exercise and massage them. I can still play the piano but I wasn't that good anyway! I can't do the long octave stretches anymore. But it is still good stretching and exercising for the hands.
I keep meaning to do what a physical therapist suggested for me to do and that is to get a container deep enough to immerse hand in and put rice grains in there and just play in the rice. They had it at the therapy place and it did feel quite nice.

I have hand balls and squiggy things to squeeze. I also have those Chinese metal balls that you hold in hand and rotate.

My finger joints are gnarly and fingers are deviated but they have not gotten worse in the past couple of years and I can still use my hands and my grip is more like a two finger grip action for small fiddly things and I can grab thicker items and there is still strength in there but I get pain. My hands and wrists are sore and hurt today I did some weeding yesterday.

My cousin has severely deformed hands from RA, and did a lot of research into this. She said that it was very experimental, and although there are some big splashes in journals about how great it is, the stats do not support it.

I had my right foot reconstructed last year, in April, because the deformities were so bad I couldn't walk. Now it is worse. All I had for additions was a pin in the bunion, besides the 6 pins down my toes and fusing the toes, metatarsal heads cut, and fat pads removed. I would NEVER get surgery anymore. I also talked to my cousin, who has had 2 knees x 2 plus 2 hips x 2, and working on the third on hips, and she said hips are the easiest, and knees less, and the smaller the joint the more issues. Another thing to be aware of, is that RA destroys the bones. My cousin has severe oestoporous from the prednisone, and she is getting infusions because they can't replace the hip because the bone isn't strong enough. After my foot surgery, the surgeon told me that he couldn't reattach my 2nd toe in the right place because the bone was so "rotten". So it can be more an issue of the surrounding bone density and tissue. I would definitely be against it.

I would go for physio. I have bad hands, too. The physio has helped me with various exercises, to stretch tendons and things like that. It depends on how it is damaged, and I understand how hard it is when the fingers don't work right, but I don't think this is going to be the right thing to do.

Read a book here about NZers with RA and someone in it had had knuckle replacement successfully but it gave no detailed info. However, I had the ultra sound and steroid injection in ankle and it gave me back a more regular existence as could hardly walk before. It is painful, (sympathy), but worth the improvement. Hopefully you wont need the knuckle replacement but if you did surely your medical system must offer high quality service - you pay enough for it! How deformed are your hands? How limiting? Physios (mentioned by angela) know useful stuff - but patients dont always do follow up exercises - however us with RA are highly motivated so should help!