Have you or someone you know ever felt a constant ache or stiffness in your hands—pain that makes it hard to do simple things like button a shirt, open a jar, or shake hands? This kind of pain might not just be a minor issue. It could be a sign of a condition called hand osteoarthritis, or hand OA.
Hand OA is a common problem that affects the joints in your hands. These joints help your fingers move so you can grip and hold objects. Over time, the joints can wear down, causing pain, stiffness, and swelling. Everyday tasks become harder and more frustrating.
This condition is more common than most people think. By the time people reach the age of 85, about half of all women and one in four men will have hand OA. But it doesn’t only affect older people. Symptoms can begin earlier in life and may continue for many years.
For a long time, there hasn’t been a good treatment to relieve the pain and stiffness caused by hand OA. But a new study from Monash University and Alfred Health may bring new hope. Researchers tested an old and affordable drug in a new way—and the results were promising.
The medicine is called methotrexate. It’s been used since the 1980s to treat diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, where the immune system attacks the joints. Even though hand OA is a different type of joint problem, researchers wondered if methotrexate could still help.
The study was led by Professor Flavia Cicuttini, a well-known expert in joint health. People in the study who had painful hand OA were given 20 mg of methotrexate once a week for six months. Another group was given a placebo—a fake pill that didn’t contain any real medicine.
The results were exciting. People who took methotrexate said they had much less pain and stiffness in their hands. In fact, their pain improved twice as much as the people who took the placebo. And this improvement lasted the whole six months of the study.
This could be very important, especially for women going through menopause or post-menopause, who often suffer from hand OA. It means there might now be a safe, low-cost way to feel better and stay more independent.
Still, this is just the beginning. The researchers say that more studies are needed to see how methotrexate works over the long term, whether it can slow joint damage, and how long it should be taken.
What makes this discovery even more special is that methotrexate is already available and well understood by doctors. Sometimes, big medical breakthroughs come from using old drugs in new ways.
For people living with painful hand OA, this research brings something more than just data—it brings hope. A future with better, cheaper, and easier ways to manage hand pain might be closer than we thought.
This research was published in the medical journal The Lancet and could lead to better care for many people dealing with joint pain.
If you care about arthritis, please read studies about extra virgin olive oil for arthritis, and pomegranate: A natural treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.
For more information about arthritis, please see recent studies about how to live pain-free with arthritis, and results showing medical cannabis may help reduce arthritis pain, back pain.
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