My daughter also developed trigger thumbs after turning 2! We saw an pediatric orthopaedic who specialized in hands (we got a recommendation from her pediatrician on who to use). The doc said that trigger thumbs are cause by a ’knotting’ of the ligaments/tendons in the thumb. When the knot gets caught up on something, that’s when they can’t fully extend the thumb and you get that trigger effect. He mentioned that lots of kids get these knots yet still do not develop trigger thumb cause the knot never gets caught on the surrounding tissue. The doc also said no one knows what causes it- hasn’t been linked to genetics, medications, or anything like that.He initally took a wait and see attitude, saying that sometimes these things correct themselves on their own. After waiting 6 months, he said that things probably weren’t going to correct on their own so we went ahead and did surgery to fix them.
Surgery was easy- we did it as outpatient even with the CAH concerns. She had it done first thing in the morning and was perfectly ok by the afternoon. She did have to wear these huge bulky bandages (kinda like a soft cast) on her hands and when they finally unravelled beyond repair after a week (cause who can keep those things on a 2 year old!) she picked her stitches out when she was supposed to be napping.
I remember when my daughter first developed her trigger thumb trying to remember how long it had been that way. It’s not like its causing them any pain that would draw parental attention to it. We too tried to straighten Kate’s thumbs out, and it didn’t phase her one bit.
Good luck with everything- trigger thumbs, all in all, are really pretty easy to deal with (especially if you are used to dealing with CAH!)
MarthaF