Single Finger Pain

Hello.  I am a 43 year old woman.  I have not begun any new medications or changes in diet or exercise patterns.  I am right handed.  I do a good deal of computer work at school but am not feeling any pain or discomfort in my hands and wrists.For the last couple of nights, I have awakened in the middle of the night with pain in my left index finger, on the inside of the finger, between the knuckle and the joint immediately above it.  Today, for the first time, I am feeling on and off "twinges" of pain during the day.  I am not feeling any pain anywhere else.  I did have a severe sprain of my left thumb back in 1982 but am not feeling pain in that area.  I have never had an injury to my left index finger.  My mother has arthritis in both hands.  I have two questions: 1. Should I be concerned? and 2. Could this be the onset of arthritis in me?

[Enoch Choi, MD]

Pain between the knuckle and joint is not likely due to arthritis which usually causes pain in a joint itself.