Your healthcare provider may send you to get an x-ray of your hands and wrists. The x-ray may show changes in the structure of your hands and wrists. But the changes shown in x-rays do not always relate to the symptoms you are experiencing.

After an x-ray shows that you have osteoarthritis, doing more x-rays is not helpful unless something changes significantly with your condition, like if you have a sudden change in your symptoms.

Your healthcare provider might also ask you to do blood tests to determine the type of arthritis you have or to see whether another hand and wrist condition is causing your symptoms.

Other types of tests like ultrasounds and MRIs are not helpful for diagnosing osteoarthritis.