‘King Charles Sausage Fingers’ Is Trending, Here’s What May Cause Dactylitis

The phrase “King Charles sausage fingers” has been trending on social media. It’s not not because of some kind of new meat-filled baked puff pastry dish in honor of Saturday’s official coronation of Charles III as the new King of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms. Instead, folks have been referring to the rather puffy, rounded appearance of the 74-year-old monarch’s fingers. And, yes, many people may not have previously “sausage” an appearance.

Now, “sausage fingers” is not an official medical term. Medical doctors don’t typically use the word “sausage” when examining you. That’s unless you happen to be holding an actual piece of bratwurst at the time and the doctor asks, “Could you please put down that sausage while I am trying to exam you” or says, “Nice sausage.”

Rather, doctors usually use more official medical term such as dactylitis when describing a condition in which fingers are inflamed to the point that they do appear sausage-like. Dactylitis is a combo of the Greek root “daktylos,” which means “finger”, and the the Greek root “itis”, which means inflammation. Therefore, dactylitis is literally some type of inflammation of the fingers.

Thus, when you develop so-called “sausage fingers,” it is usually not because there is actual sausage in your fingers, which would be a medical emergency. In other words, it’s not the wurst thing that can happen. Rather, “sausage fingers” can result when there’s swelling and potentially some fluid accumulation in your fingers. And, yes, there can be a link between a sausage finger appearance and inflammation in the fingers.

Dactylitis can affect any number of fingers, ranging from one to however many fingers you may have. It can also affect any part of a finger up to the entire finger.

Even though dactylitis is not always a medical emergency, it should merit rather prompt medical attention. Inflammation tends to be a sign that something’s gone wrong in a body part. You don’t tend to hear people say, “The good news is that one of my body parts got inflamed.”

So what can get inflamed in your fingers? Well, there are the numerous joints in your fingers. And there’s a medical term for joint inflammation, too: arthritis. Arthritis has that familiar Greek root “itis” preceded by the Greek words for joint, namely “arthro.” Arthritis of the finger joints has many different possible causes, ranging from osteoarthritis to psoriatic arthritis to rheumatoid arthritis to gout.

A number of these possibilities are autoimmune conditions. That’s when your immune system gets kind of confused and begins attacking your own body parts. Some autoimmune reactions can attack the joints. Others such as those seen in Sickle cell disease and sarcoidosis can attack other parts of the bones or the soft tissue in your fingers.

Infections can also result in a sausage fest of the fingers. These include Lyme Disease, tuberculosis, syphilis, and blistering distal dactylitis. But before you go off and claim that the King has syphilis, keep in mind that infections are a much rarer cause of dactylitis.

Treatment of dactylitis does depend on what’s causing it. For example, if the culprit is some type of an infection, the treatment is typically some type of antibiotic. Treatment may be a bit more challenging for different types of arthritis and autoimmune diseases. You may not be able to fully eliminate the dactylitis but instead can only use different treatments such as cortisone shots, physical therapy, anti-inflammatory medications, ice, and cold water soaks to manage and reduce the symptoms.

Besides inflammation, fluid retention can lead to fingers have a swollen appearance in general.

Without closely examining the King or his medical records, it’s difficult to put one’s finger on what exactly may be happening with the man formerly known as Prince, the Prince of Wales, that is. Since his fingers have had that appearance for a while—as seen in photos from 2019—it’s less likely that his fingers are inflamed from an infection. But beyond that, everything would be sheer speculation. Because, let’ be frank, you can’t really diagnose a medical condition such as “sausage fingers” from afar. One thing’s for sure, though, social media seems to be having quite sausage fest about his fingers.