11 Causes of Hand Swelling

What’s causing your hands to swell?

When hands swell, it’s hard to ignore. Especially as the swelling often comes with pain. And it may be more difficult to hold objects and carry out daily activities.

Hand swelling is typically caused by fluid retention, arthritis, or a rise in your body temperature. Some causes will improve on their own and are not cause for alarm. Others can become more serious and damage the structures of the hand. Hand swelling may also indicate an underlying illness.

Treatment depends on the cause of your hand swelling, but in general, following the R.I.C.E. (rest, ice, compression, and elevation) protocol can usually treat most causes of swelling. You may also need medication for underlying conditions.

2. Retained fluid

Symptoms

• Swelling of both hands and/or fingers

Your body has many processes that work to maintain the fluid balance. But sometimes you can have an accumulation of fluid, which leads to swelling in your hands. Fluid retention has a number of causes:

• Diet (eating too much salt or carbohydrates).
• A number of medical conditions including thyroid, liver, or kidney disease.
• Pregnancy can cause women to retain water. If you are pregnant and suddenly develop swelling, call your doctor. This may be a sign of a serious condition called pre-eclampsia, which causes an increase in blood pressure. If left untreated, it could be life-threatening for you and the fetus.
• Being perimenopausal or menopausal.
• Some medications may cause hand swelling including steroids, pain medications (aspirin, ibuprofen), hormonal therapy (estrogen, testosterone), diabetes medications, or blood pressure medications.

3. Dependent edema

Symptoms

• Swelling of one or both hands

Dependent edema is caused by your hand being held lower than the heart for a prolonged amount of time. This can be because of its position when sitting or sleeping. Or it can happen after being kept in one position for a long time—like when traveling.

Certain environmental conditions—heat, hot weather, exercising—cause blood vessels to dilate, leading to swelling. It should go away soon after changing the position of your hand or when no longer being exposed to the environmental factors. But you may also need to elevate your hands or use compression bandages.

4. Injuries

Symptoms

• Pain near the injury site
• Painful to move your fingers or joints
• Possible bruising, deformity, and/or swelling

Hand injuries include fractures (broken bones), dislocations (bones no longer aligned properly), sprains (overstretched ligament), and strains (overstretched tendon/muscles). You can also have crush injuries when the hand or part of the hand is crushed. This leads to swelling from muscle damage.

5. Infections

Symptoms

• Either local or generalized swelling and/or pain.
• Usually associated with red discoloration and/or warmth to touch.
• Sometimes has lesions or is oozing pus.

Infections can involve the skin, nail, tissue, joints, and/or tendons. This includes:

• Paronychia: infection involving cuticle area of nail.
• Felon: infection involving fingertip.
• Herpetic whitlow: herpes infection leading to blisters on fingers.
• Flexor tenosynovitis: infection of the tendon leading to sausage-like swelling and a bent finger. It causes severe pain if you try to straighten it.
• Septic joint: infection within the finger joint leading to pain, swelling, and redness, and being unable to move your finger.
• Cellulitis: infection of skin leading to pain, swelling, and redness.
• Bite wounds: infection from bite wounds most commonly from dogs, cats, or people.

6. Lumps and bumps

Symptoms

• Swelling on your hands.
• Itching particularly with insect bites or allergic reactions.
• Nodules in the palm due to abnormal tissue thickening with Dupuytren’s disease. This leads to tightening of tissue, visible bands, and what’s called contractures (pulling of fingers—most commonly ring and pinky finger—towards palms).

Rather than swelling of the entire hand, you may notice a smaller mass. These have several possible causes:

• Cancer such as skin cancer (basal cell carcinoma, melanoma, squamous cell carcinoma) or sarcoma (bone or tissue cancer).
• Cysts such as a ganglion cyst (fluid-filled cyst usually by finger joint or wrist) and epidermal inclusion cyst (filled with skin protein).
• Non-cancerous tumors such as a lipoma (fat tumor), giant cell tumor (painless mass at end of bones near joint), neuroma (nerve tumor), and fibroma (connective tissue tumor).
• Warts: skin-colored growths due to human papillomavirus (HPV).

7. Deep vein thrombosis (DVT)

Symptoms

• Pain which may initially be just by the affected vessel then spreads to the area
• Swelling which may initially be just by the affected vessel then spreads to the area
• Possible redness and/or warmth

A deep vein thrombosis (DVT) occurs when a clot forms in a blood vessel. The clot blocks blood flow and leads to swelling. The clot may be caused by trauma, infection, or catheter placement. It may also be caused by conditions that increase your risk of forming clots such as cancer, pregnancy, or a blood clotting disorder.

8. Lymphedema

Symptoms

• Swelling usually in one arm, but may be both

The swelling associated with lymphedema is caused by abnormal drainage of lymph nodes, which are part of your immune system. It is often due to a complication from cancer treatment such as removal of lymph nodes or damage from radiation treatment.

It could also occur because a cancerous mass is blocking lymphatic drainage. Or it can be due to a complication from other surgeries, as well as from infections. Elastic bandages are often used to decrease swelling and help with drainage.

9. Contact dermatitis

Symptoms

• Red, itchy rash on your hand
• Swollen skin
• Dry, cracked skin
• Blisters in serious cases

Contact dermatitis is a skin reaction caused by touching an irritating substance, such as soap, bleach, cleaning agents, or other chemicals. Treatment includes avoiding the substance and using steroid or barrier cream/ointment on hands until the dermatitis clears.

10. Scleroderma

Symptoms

• Pain
• Swelling or puffiness—fingers may resemble sausages
• Thickened, shiny, or discolored skin
• Pale or blue fingers that get numb when exposed to cold or stress

Scleroderma is a connective tissue disease leading to thickening of skin. It causes swelling and stiffness of skin and joints of the fingers and hands. It’s often associated with Raynaud’s syndrome, which causes blood vessels to narrow, leading to a lack of blood flow. Scleroderma causes scarring of many body parts, leading to problems in the lungs, kidneys, heart, digestive tract, and other areas.

11. Thoracic outlet syndrome

Symptoms

• Pain in arm and/or hand
• Swelling in arm and/or hand
• Numbness which may include neck, shoulder, arm, and/or hand
• Cold fingers/hand
• Weak grip

Thoracic outlet syndrome is caused by compression of nerves and/or blood vessels in the area between your collarbone and first rib. It causes pain, swelling, and numbness. This may be due to trauma, malignancy, pregnancy, or being born with an extra rib.

Causes of hand swelling in children

• Kawasaki disease: Hand swelling can be one sign of a syndrome that also involves high fever, swollen lymph nodes, and a red tongue.
• Sickle cell disease: Swelling of the fingers and hands is a common sign of sickle cell disease in young children.
• Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in children (MIS-C) associated with COVID-19: Redness and/or swelling of hands and/or feet in children with a history of COVID-19 or exposure to the coronavirus. This may lead to multisystem organ involvement.