FOOSH Accident, 2 months later sudden painless "Crunching" feeling in thumb.

[shelzmike]

45 Year old male. Healthy, quite active as it relates to working on ladders, physical labor on a farm, etc.

I should preface this by saying that I DO plan on seeing my doctor about this but was just curious as this type of stuff fascinates me and I like to be informed.

Anyway, about 2 months ago, I was working on a small step ladder, about 24" off the ground. When I went to step off of it, my foot hit an object that fell into the step ladder that I didn't see and in stepping down, I sort of tripped and fell on a concrete floor and did catch myself with my outstretched hand, primarily my left near the thumb. Now, I have played every sport imaginable growing up, including skateboarding during my teen years and do know how to take a fall to hopefully minimize injury.

After the fall, I didn't really have that much pain, just a general impact type of pain (i.e. if you slap concrete with your hand it'll sting/hurt for a bit) that dissipated probably within an hour or less. I had no swelling, no significant lingering pain to speak of, no limitation on movement, so I thought all was fine. I have broken bones in the past, sprained joints, and even had torn ligaments several times, so I am familiar with the pains associated. I had none of this.

Then over the course of the next few weeks, I started to noticed a very very small amount of tenderness and pain in my left thumb, about the medial area of the thumb metacarpal. I still had (and have) range of motion and though I have noticed a slight decrease in strength, it is mainly relegated to the pain. When I grip around something (like a can), no real pain or issues. When I pinch and most specifically when I extend my thumb against force - like when you reach in a tight poocket and try to open your hand to grab something or are putting on tight fitting nitrile gloves, this is when I have the most pain. Maybe only about a 2 or 3 on the pain scale for me. It feels more like a soft tissue pain. I noticed that if I press on the joint at the distal part of the metacarpal and the trapezium, I feel the tenderness essentially right in the middle of the "meat" part of my thiumb, close to the metacarpal bone.

The prevelance of the pain comes and goes, and generally comes more often when I have done work that uses my hand a lot more. I hadn't seen a doctor yet because it honestly hasn't really been that bad. Then, a couple of days ago, I did just a few pushups and while there was some tenderness, it wasn't anything I was overly concerned with. However, yesterday and then today, the pain has been more noticable, but still not above a 2 or 3.

My concern is that i have developed a new symptom that is fully pain free, but strange nonetheless. When I move my thumb back and forth (noticed when typing on my phone) and especially when I hold my thumb outstretched and "flap" it like a bird wing, I feel what I can only describe as like a "crunching" feeling. Literally cannot explain it any other way. Again, the pain that exists is still that soft tissue type of feeling I feel but the crunching itself is not directly associated with any additional pain whatsoever. I honestly can't tell if this "crunching" or vibrating (on motion) is coming from the distal metacarpal joint or the trapezium, though it does seem it is perhaps closer to the latter. Any ideas on what this could be? It is awful odd and yes, the crackling, crunching, however I can describe it started suddenly at least it seems so.