Have you ever heard of stiff fingers? Or the clawed hand? Is it possible for you to get this condition?

 

Sclerodactyly is a health condition in which the skin suffers from a kind of stiffness and increased thickness, which leads to the contraction of the palm of the hand and the fingers to take the position of the claw. Systemic scleroderma is one of the main causes.

Initial symptoms:

It may begin with the patient noticing a kind of swelling in the palm of the hand before the actual stiffness of the fingers, and this condition may cause a very annoying curvature of the fingers, and these are the initial symptoms that appear on the skin:

• Shrinking or stretching of the skin.

• An increase in skin thickness.

• A new stiffness in the skin.

• A lump in the skin.

It is worth noting that these symptoms:

• It may appear for certain periods and disappear, then reappear and so forth.

• It may last with the patient for several years.

• It may be at its worst in the morning.

In rare cases, scleroderma may develop to harden the palm of the hand and take a claw-like shape, and the patient becomes completely unable to move his fingers, which may affect the tender palm tissue, which may fade and weaken afterwards.