My Hand Shakes After Using Power Tools – What Does This Mean?
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What Does it Mean if your Hand Shakes After Using Power Tools?
Do you often experience shakes in your hand and/or arms after using power tools?
If you do, you might be suffering from hand arm vibration syndrome or vibration white finger, both irreversible conditions that are most commonly caused by the use of power tools like powered sanders, grinders, jackhammers and pneumatic drills.
Symptoms of Conditions Caused by Using Power Tools
The main conditions caused by using powerful vibratory tools are:
- Hand arm vibration syndrome, and
- Vibration white finger.
These are painful and debilitating disorders that have many symptoms, including shaky hands.
Other than hand shakes, hand arm vibration symptoms and vibration white finger symptoms include:
- Swollen, throbbing fingers
- Numbness in fingers, hands and arms
- Tingling feeling in fingers and fingertips
- A loss of strength and dexterity
- Fingers going white
If you are suffering from any of these symptoms after using power tools at work in the last 3 years, you are likely owed compensation.
Claim Compensation for Vibration Injuries
Are you experiencing shaking in your hand after regularly working with power tools? Then get in touch. We will help you assess if you can claim compensation.
Health Conditions Caused by Using Power Tools
Power tools are pretty much what they say on the tin – powerful. They also emit vibration, which can lead to permanent health conditions that can affect people significantly for the rest of their lives.
If you have shakes in your hand after using hand held power tools and notice these other symptoms too, you could be suffering from hand arm vibration syndrome.
As well as hand arm vibration syndrome, using power tools can cause a condition called vibration white finger syndrome. This health issue is very closely linked to hand arm vibration syndrome, and shares a lot of its symptoms. However, vibration white finger primarily affects the fingers and hands, and not the arms so much.
One of the main symptoms of vibration white finger is, as the name suggests, whiteness of “blanching” of a person’s fingers. The blanching may start slowly in the fingertips and gradually develop to affect the rest of the fingers the worse the condition gets.
Whiteness in the fingers is often accompanied with numbness and/or pain, and develops due to a loss of blood flow into the fingers due to excessive vibration.
Are you suffering from any of the symptoms above after working with vibratory tools at work? If so, we could help you get compensated.
Can Vibration Cause Nerve Damage?
In short, yes. If your hand shakes after using power tools you may be developing symptoms caused by nerve damage.
Not only this, but the blood vessels and joints in your fingers, hands, wrists and arms can become badly damaged by using powerful vibratory tools.
Unfortunately, most of the damage is irreversible, and conditions are permanent. Symptoms may ease if a person abstains from using power tools, but once the damage is done there is nothing that can be done to fully repair it.
If this happened to you, and it was caused at your place of work, you can claim compensation for this, likely either through a Vibration White Finger Claim or Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome Claim.
How to Prevent Vibration Related Injuries?
The only way to prevent vibration related injuries is to wear proper protection whilst using power tools and by taking plenty of breaks. Even fifteen minutes per day using some power tools, such as angle grinders and chainsaws, is enough to cause symptoms of hand arm vibration syndrome to develop.
If you use power tools in your own time it is, of course, your responsibility to ensure that you have enough breaks, don’t use the tools too much and wear adequate protection.
However, if it is part of your job to use vibratory tools then by law it is your employer’s responsibility to do so. If they are negligent in their duty to protect you from developing a vibration related injury and you end up doing so, they can be held accountable for any pain, suffering and financial losses you experience.
Experiencing shakes in your hand or hands after using power tools can often be a sign of a serious underlying condition like hand arm vibration syndrome or vibration white finger. And, if your symptoms are caused by your work environment you should take action now, before your condition gets worse. You may also develop other permanent conditions through the unsafe use of power tools, including Dupuytren’s contracture, also known as ‘Claw hand‘.
Has an employer failed to give you adequate breaks and proper protective equipment? You could be eligible to pursue a claim, and we can help.
