post pregnancy stiff hands/fingers/wrists

[Amyamelia]

My daughter is 8 months old and I am waking up with stiff fingers/hands. I am particularly sore in between my thumb and finger, as well as the wrist area below my thumbs to the outside of the wrist. I thought it may be the way I lift her under the arms? I am just concerned because my fingers are often stiff too. She is a big girl! 

[lifeguard]

Two thoughts:

1. I had a  lot of problems with stiff hands/fingers at the end of my pregnancy & for the first few weeks/months. It eventually went away on it's own & I never figured out what caused it.

2. When ds got to be about a year I started get pain & weakness in one hand, specifically down my thumb. Almost dropped things a few times when suddenly I had no ability to grasp something. Turned out it was how I was lifting him, specifically to get him in & out of the carseat (he was not a petite guy!). I started tucking my thumb against the rest of my hand to lift him (so not grasping him with my hand if that makes sense) & it slowly went away. Try looking up something called mother's thumb - I think that is what I had.

[JudiAU]

Are you nursing? I found that I got into bad habits with how I supported LO in a weird elbow/chair/boppy combo. It really caused carpel tunnel like symptoms to flare up. I found a wrist brace helpful because it supported that inflamed nerves but also reminded me to be considerate to my body.

With my second LO, I never had a chance to nurse with the comfy chair/boppy because I was too busy with the first. No problems with my shoulders/wrists/hands.

[luckiest]

Well, I hesitate to convey my story because I don't want to freak you out, but it sounds a lot like how my RA started (although mine was in other joints).  Joint pain on waking is generally indicative of arthritis; the joint gets stiff overnight when it isn't being used, and as it warms up it gets better throughout the day.  RA in particular usually starts in the hands/fingers.  I hope that isn't what's going on with you, but I'll tell you my story (a very short version) anyway.

I'll start with good news - I'm off all meds after a drastic change in my diet.  I don't want to come off like a crazy person, but switching to a hunter-gatherer type diet, and totally eliminating all modern food fixed me.  

My joint pain started in my elbow, very slowly.  Stiff when I woke up, but totally better within a few hours.  Then it wouldn't go away and it got more stiff and I lost range of motion.  Saw a rheumatologist, eventually had surgery on the elbow and started RA meds.  My knee and my wrist were also affected.  When I got pregnant (I had to take Clomid to conceive, infertility is very commonly associated with autoimmune illness) my symptoms went away (as is typical, pregnancy usually causes a remission).  A few months after the birth I started feeling like it was coming back - knee swelling and a sore wrist (my elbow has such damage that it always has some degree of stiffness) when I woke up.  I was bound and determined to not go through the same mess and go back on the awful meds, so I took the advice of my chiropractor and started a gluten free diet.  More research led me to the paleo diet, and that is what has me fully healthy again.  

It may be worth a trip to a rheumatologist (or just to a GP) to see what they have to say.  I'll warn you that RA is a purely clinical diagnosis, there isn't a dependable blood test (I tested negative for the "RA marker"), and lots of times they diagnose just based on whether or not the meds work.  

I hope I didn't just freak you out, but stiff hands in the morning always is a red flag to me.  There are some fantastic books and blogs out there about paleo - I very highly recommend Robb Wolf's book The Paleo Solution.  He has a blog as well and talks quite a bit about autoimmune illness.  Again, hopefully this isn't what's going on with you, but I wanted to pass on my story anyway!  Good luck!