What could be causing my clicky thumb?

[BlackAmericanoNoSugar]

For about 10 days now when I wake up my right thumb is clicky, in motion not noise. So when I bend it, it resists and then suddenly gives and bends, the same when I straighten it. It stops after 20 minutes or so. My hands are a bit sore generally and have been for a long time (just age I think) but the click itself doesn't hurt when it happens.

Any ideas why, or what I could do to stop it happening, like exercises or something?

Is it de quervain’s tenosynivitis? I am not a doctor, but had this many years ago (to do with inflamed tendon sheaths etc)

I don't think so from Googling. That seems to be pain on the thumb side of the wrist, but my wrist is fine. It's the joint on my thumb that clicks.

It wasn’t too painful for me when I had it, it was more that the thumb became like a ‘trigger’ and was licked and then clicked free (I think something to do with inflamed tendon for thumb getting stuck then becoming free with a sudden click, like a trigger finger)..

Trigger tbumb

I've just Googled that, and that's exactly what it is, even down to a sore patch on the palm side of the base of my thumb. Thanks.

So the treatment is to stop doing what makes it sore (um, not a particular thing I don't think) and splinting it until it subsides. So I will start with strapping it at night and see if that helps. I have a tendency to sleep with my hands curled into a fist and tucked underneath my body, which is probably not helping at all, so strapping my thumb should help with that.

I don't know why I didn't think of it but now that I've looked it up I remember that my Mum had a trigger finger that she eventually needed to have an operation on because it got so bad that it wouldn't straighten.