Thanks!

Bonnie

I am wondering if anyone can tell me what to expect. When do you think the swelling will go down? How can you tell between a strain or a rupture or a tear? Any new light will be much appreciated. Thank you

I agree with all you have said. I have a page on my website all about this, but I have forgotten to add the taping information. I agree with you, taping helps when recovering from an injury.

I hope the stuff at My rock climbing site will help.

Climbing is bad for your fingers, arms and shoulders. We are not meant to climb rocks.

Taping can work, but only if you are recovering from a injury. It should be avioided once your fingers are better as this allows to tendons to grow stronger.

Cold water therpy is OK but conbine it with ice treament (for the first week after injury), alternate hot and cold treament. Cross fiber massage (not after ice or cold water), Distilled Witch Hazel on a bandage and leave on finger over night (this can be done as much as you want, it will bring any swelling down). Non-steriod anti-inflammatory drugs (only use for one week).

As far as climbing goes, dont do anything that hurts. Climb on easy routes or holds that dont hurt. Try some endurance climbing for a while. Lots of endurance climbing games on my climbing courses and tips website.

I know that icing and IBU is the best thing at the on-sight of injury to help reduce swelling and inflammation before trying to rehab it. I hope someone hear has some experience with this and come shed some light for me as I do some more research.

The timing of the injury would normally be ideal given it’s winter. Unfortunately I JUST joined the gym a couple weeks ago to get in some work during the off-season. I guess it’s better to to take some gym-time off than lose time on the rock this spring/summer. I just hope I don’t lose these callouses that took many a skin-ripping hanger to finally build up!

I second Leif’s opinion – don’t get back on it until it is 100%! It will prolong the pain and suffering. I tape my finger so that I can do my basic weightlifting, but I avoid exercises where I have to grip the bar hard to hold it. I use standard athletic tape and tape parallel to my finger with it bent back, and then 3 wraps around the injured area.

Light massage is OK for a few minutes every day to bring some blood to the area. I am talking VERY light. The idea is that it speeds recovery by drawing attention to the area. I also GENTLY pull and GENTLY stretch it, never passing the point of pain. I also have a soft squeeze ball at my desk, and I do multiple and single finger exercises on that finger for 10-15 minutes per day. If it gets pretty sore I will ice it for 15-30 minutes. Over the last few months it really feels like it is getting better. I have not climbed on it for almost 3 months now, and I plan on using the winter to do other activities.

Good luck man!

Yeah, I know that after some healing, one could massage a sprained ankle, etc. In this case, it sounds fairly fresh, so to speak, and so my note above was meant in that context: a fresh injury of this sort would just be aggravated by massage. It never felt good at any time, to massage my finger. I also laid off climbing for months and months. Hopefully if you give it a couple weeks to rest, you can be back at it sooner than if you tried to avoid using it, and kept climbing.

I think your concern is well-placed, that climbing with your healthy fingers could injure them, too. Just consider yourself fortunate that it’s not worse than it is, and be heartened that you can control that it isn’t going to get worse.

Anyway, I was curious to hear if anyone ever tried taping the affected finger in a straightened position to do some lighter climbing. The tape would be more just a way of keeping me from bending it and therefore remind me to not use it on holds while climbing. My main concern with this is that the added stress on my other fingers on that hand may invite injury to a new finger.

Also, many of you have mentioned massaging the affected finger. What do you do for this massage? How forceful do you get? Is this really beneficial? It seems like it would just irritate this area when it needs to be left alone to heal.

Thanks for any info and best of luck/quick recoveries to you all!

@Bill: fly-catching… yeah, been there. That really smarts. I’m sure you already discovered that pulling up socks and wringing washcloths are also giant no-nos.

@Stephen: did your MRI tell you anything new?

I was diagnosed with a partial tear to the A2 on my left middle finger 4 months ago without the benefit of an MRI. It was his opinion that MRI’s are often inconclusive. The doctor, a hand surgery specialist, discouraged surgery even if it was a complete rupture and said that complications from the scar tissue could cause chronic pain and permanent loss of range of motion. I wore a thermoplastic pulley ring with a velcro closure, fashioned by their hand therapist, for several weeks and it seemed to keep me from injuring it further.
Four months after the injury and I can touch my palm with the fingertip of that finger only after a 5-10 minute soak in warm water. I do that twice daily. Several hours later, it is right back where I started with little noticibale improvement. If I try to close it fully, without the warm water soak, the pain is mostly in the palm. It is comfortable to grasp a thick object like a steering wheel but impossible to grasp something thin like a rope. It slips right thru my fingers. Similar to Bonnie, I have noticed that the finger gets cold faster than the others. The doctor did say that it will take a long time to heal and if it tears again…back to square one if it’s re-injured. I made the mistake a few weeks back of (instinctively) trying to catch a fly with that hand. I tried it without thinking. OUCH! that hurt. I’ve seen comments from others here that they’ve gone nine months before a partial tear completely healed. I am hopeful that it will heal fully and I’ve adjusted to it as well as I can in the meantime.

I’m also thankful for the nine good ones I do have. Best of luck with it and have a Happy Thanksgiving.