I believe I fscked up royally.

Last Friday, I fell while snowboarding, and landed upon the fingers of my left hand, which got hyper-extended severely. And I've got a con in less than two weeks, the whole point of which is to perform songs on the guitar. Yes, this is exactly what I was afraid would happen. Sigh.

Mostly the problem is with my left middle finger, although the left index finger is a bit swollen as well. There is swelling, discoloration, limited mobility, and of course pain if the finger is moved far from the position you see it in the photo.

I don't know if this is a sprain or what. If it's not a sprain, what could it be?

I've heard lots of contradicting opinions as to how to care for it:

- Ice it regularly for many days.
- Don't ice it at all.
- Alternate heat and ice.
- Exercise it.
- Don't exercise it.
- Immobilize it.
- Take antihistamines to reduce swelling.
- Take advil to reduce swelling.
- See a doctor.
- Don't bother to see a doctor because they can't do much for it.

Can anyone render an opinion on how to care for it that's backed up by reasoning and medical explanations for those reasons? (As opposed to the equivalent of "My mom always put ice on my sprains and I turned out fine.")

My goal is to be able to play the guitar again in approximately ten days. In other words, I want it to heal as fast as possible. My fear is that attempting to do anything other than hold it still will lengthen the healing time.

So... anyone?

I think you go to a doctor to get proper advice

Agreed. See a doctor as soon as possible. Not that it is something lethal or anything, but you do want to perform in a short period of time. Beyond that, I would say anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs) - your typical stuff there. But a doctor would be able to give you far better advice given your timeline, and may also recommend something a bit stronger and localized (cortizone shot).

According to my sibling, it looks and sounds broken. Go get an xray.

Now that I actually look at its range of motion, there is pain only when I move it more than about 60 degrees. So I'm thinking it's not as serious as a break.

Believe it or not, sprains are often worse and more painful than breaks. Just go get a damn xray already

I fell and hurt my foot a while ago. I figured it was just bruised or sprained because it didn't hurt too bad but after a week I went to a doctor to get an xray and it turned out to be broken. The stupid part was they couldn't do anything about it anyway.

i hurt my arm quite badly one time. i did go to the doctor and they said nothing was wrong with me. when it still hurt quite badly 2 weeks later, i went back. 'oh yeah, this is broken. why didnt you come in earlier?'
sweet

my sister also had a broken arm. not only did they say it wasnt broken, when she went back the second time they 'discovered' that the wrong arm, which was perfectly fine, was broken!

Well, icing reduces swelling. Swelling caused by fluid incursion causes tissue damage and scar tissue, plus it takes time to heal. Ice for a maximum of 5 minutes but do not allow the tissues to become chilled through - the idea is to cool, not to freeze (even worse). Repeat only a couple of times per hour, and for only a few hours in the days after the injury. Don't heat, or alternate. Heat will promote swelling through fluid flow, the exact opposite of what you want.

I can thoroughly recommend a TENS apparatus for rapid healing of sprains, I have the OMRON E3 unit which you should be able to hire or buy at relatively low cost. It has helped me get past a muscle tear about 14 days before a race, and while I didn't perform at my peak, I could in fact run and didn't cause any further damage. Highly recommended as the wonder solution.

Drink lots of milk.

Absolutely ice it, and take some ibuprofen.

The theory being that it is swollen, and wants to swell up even more. This swelling causes blood vessels to burst, causing even more swelling, and lengthing the time to heal.

Icing it reduces the swelling, and thus the collatoral damage. Ibuprofen also reduces swelling, but has certain risks (read the label, please).

Find a nice doc and/or sports medicine clinic and get them to check it out further.

Cheers

What everyone else said. See a doctor -- they can't do much for it, but they can tell you the extent of the injury, and, if necessary, give you a recommendation to a physiotherapist. I agree with Heather (or, rather, her sister by proxy of Heather) -- it looks broken, when I compare it to when I broke a knuckle falling off a bridge when biking (it was only a 1 foot drop, but it was into a front-wheel slurping bog). If not broken, it may have been dislocated, as well.

My advice? Forget about the concert. Unless you string your guitar backwards, I highly doubt you'll be forming chords with that hand in 10 days.

Speedy healing... keep us posted.

Heather said: Just go get a damn xray already

Ummm... yeah. What she said.

I had a slow-speed mountain bike... upset, I guess. It doesn't really deserve to be called a crash. I tweaked the forefinger of my left hand, and being a very tough, macho guy insisted that it didn't need any attention, since there was minimal blood and no broken shards of bone poking through rendered flesh.

Big mistake.

Nearly two years later, I now have about 60% of the strength of that finger available to me, and am happy to have that as it is a big improvement over the 30-40% I had for the first year or so.

It is still slowly getting better, but had I gotten proper attention to it in the first place the results would have been much better.

tanstaafl.

Well, my GP was closed on President's Day, but I'm hoping I can get through to them tomorrow for an appointment.

...and...?

I won't get the xray results back until Friday (to find out if I chipped any of the joints), but the doctor is optimistic I'll be able to play by the 4th.

She wants me to keep the affected joints immobile (no exercising them or trying to play) for several days. Typing with splints is interesting.

In the meantime, she has me taking double doses of Aleve as an anti-inflammatory. She also says that heat promotes blood flow which promotes healing, as long as I'm also keeping the swelling down to prevent tissue damage. Hence the "alternating heat and ice" recommendation.

The fingers are still swollen, and I still can't curl them very far. I'm just crossing my fingers that they'll be OK in a week. Um, so to speak.

... and charge you for teaching you how to use dental picks, as well