If you found this article, I'm going to presume that you have recently suffered an injury to one or more of your fingers. I will also assume you've been searching the internet looking for information on how to best expedite the healing process. That is exactly what happened to me. I can only hope that you found this article before wasting 40+ hours scouring the net only to come up empty or more confused than before. That also, is what happened to me. Only I believe I spent more time than 40 hours. And ended up more confused. My aim in this article is to rectify that.
Before I get into the results of my finger rehab search, let me give you a little background on the injury I suffered. It happened while helping my future mother in law roto-till the garden. Before you get squeamish, nothing happened with the roto-tiller. It happened when I sat down in a chaise lounge chair to put on my work boots. The chair had a design flaw that caused the legs to sever the top half inch of my left index finger. As a professional magician, that's an important half inch!
The doctors were not able to save the whole tip due to a crushed bone, so they did their best to attach a somewhat risky graft in the hopes that some of the tissue would regenerate. Then they sent me on my way with zero information on what to do next.
That is what led me to where you might be now. You may have suffered from a fracture, surgery to repair a trigger or mallet finger or maybe just a severe sprain. Whatever happened, just like me you figured the internet would provide you with a program that your doctor did not supply. Maybe your injury didn't even require a doctor's visit, and you just want to know what to do to get back to whatever it was that may have put you into this position in the first place. Personally, I don't think I will ever go back to gardening work.
So, first things first. Let's look at what you have to deal with in order to get healthy fast. I have broken it down into just a few categories. There is more to it, but these are the basics that should get you started.
- Pain Management
- Reducing Swelling
- Flexibility and Strength
Additionally, if you have had surgery or stitches, this is the first thing you will have to attend to. I will include that under that category of pain management since I happen to know firsthand (pun intended) that surgery and stitches can be quite painful.
If you've had stitches, then I cannot emphasize enough that you should keep that would clean and be generous with the anti-biotic ointment. My doctor told me to redress the wound once a day. I did it three or four times. The other advantage to frequent redressing of a stitched area is that it gives you the opportunity to give that joint some movement. Too often we tightly wrap an injury only to forget to relieve the compression occasionally to let blood flow in and carry out toxins. Also, you want movement as soon as possible to the surrounding joint so that it doesn't start to freeze in a rigid position. At first, I waited too long to flex the finger joints and it was pretty painful to get that flexibility back. And when I say I waited too long, I'm only talking about a few days. Atrophy can set in quite swiftly.
The other thing to remember if you've had stitches, is that some of the physical therapy recommendations will have to wait a bit until the wound is completely closed. This can vary from person to person, but for the most part 1 to 2 weeks should do it. All that means is , DON'T PUSH IT! Not just yet anyway. You can flex your finger, but please don't pop any stitches.
Pain management is important because you will never use the afflicted finger, let alone exercise it, if every movement causes great pain. Swelling will be a major part of that pain, which we will address in a moment. If you've had stitches, then you also have the pain associated with having an open wound. Additionally, a fracture will have the broken bone to contend with. These can be addressed with your basic pain killer. Whether you prefer Ibuprofen, Acetaminophen, Naproxen or plain old aspirin, be sure to take it. This will be your best friend for the first few days.
Also, I highly recommend something that will seem simple, but will be hard to accomplish. Isolation. The majority of the setbacks I suffered were die to bumping and jamming my injured finger. What you don't realize until you've suffered an injury, is that due to lack of flexibility in your freshly wounded digit, it will bump into almost everything. What happens in your normal life is that your senses work in conjunction with your limbs to keep you safe. They are always on the lookout for protuberances that may harm you.
For example, your eyes can sense just how wide a doorway is, and will adjust your path so that you don't run into the door jamb. If it is an automatic door, your body will adjust your speed so that you don't run into the glass. When the brain is sent the information, the body will adjust to prevent injury.
However, if your finger no longer bends to the same degree it used to, even though the brain sends out the signal, the finger is unable to respond and pull itself out of the way. This would happen to me while driving. Turning the steering wheel, I didn't realize that my fingers would slightly curl so as not to hit the wind shield wiper or turn signal stalk. After the injury, I hit them every time I made a turn. Pretty soon, I felt like I could only go somewhere if I could drive in a straight line. Once I understood what was happening, I made the adjustment and ended the problem. So, be aware, and be sure to isolate your finger.
Now here is some information that is not new. I'm going to tell you that what grandma did still works best. R.I.C.E. Rest, ice, compression and elevation. Rest is kind of self explanatory. If you've hurt yourself rock climbing, it might not be a bad idea to take a few days off. Ice, compression and elevation are used mostly to deal with the swelling that accompanies an injury to one of your fingers. For some reason God only knows, it seems that the amount of swelling that goes with an injury is about four times higher than the amount really needed.
To deal with this, ice frequently. Do not put ice directly on the skin. First, it can damage tissue, and second, you won't be able to stand it for very long which will cheat you of the benefits of the therapy. You want multiple 15 to 20 minute sessions throughout the day. I know this is boring and inconvenient, but this will help you heal fast.
I had great success with cool water therapy. You cannot use this if you've had stitches until the wound is sealed, but this worked very well for me. The great thing about cool water treatment is that you withstand long sessions. Perfect if your daily life won't let you stick your hand in ice every 15 minutes. Just cool some water to about 60 degrees. I put some in a bowl that I kept next to the computer. Then.. stick your hand into it. I would keep it there for at least thirty minutes, maybe more. Your body adjusts to the temperature in about a minute or so, and soon you won't even notice you are soaking.
I also made improvement with alternating warm and cool water therapy. This is simple to do. Two bowls, one with 60 degree water and the other with 115 degree water. Alternate bowls for 5 or 10 minutes sessions.
Finally, you need to start rebuilding strength and flexibility in the injured finger. This is easy to neglect. After a while, you can get used to not using that injured finger and pretty soon, it will be extremely difficult to eliminate the stiffness. Be aggressive here. Constantly work the muscles. There are some great devices out there that can help. I've made video reviews of some of my favorites which I am posting on my web site. Even though these things work well, I have found that a few rubber bands, some squeeze balls and a deck of playing cards can be great therapy tools.
A reminder here. You will recover much faster if you remember to include extension exercises in your regimen. Most devices for sale only focus on flexion of the finger, the closing of the fingers or hand. This can build a muscle imbalance that will hinder your recovery. Be sure to work the extensor muscles as frequently as the flexors. This can be done with a rubber band around two fingers and forcing them to spread apart. Work with progressively thicker bands as you build strength. If you are really ambitious, you can grab one of those green bands they use at the grocery store to wrap vegetables.
Well, that's the basics. I hope they help. Of course there is a lot more that you can do for proper finger rehab, but it cannot be covered in one article. In the future, I will address some of the odd exercises I've come up with that were of tremendous benefit. Most of the stuff you can find on line works OK. It's just that they are boring and that means you will forget to do them. Using my profession as a magician, I found magic tricks that simulated those exercises, but they were much more fun to do and therefore, more likely to get done.
That will be the subject of a future article. Till then, you can always reach me at patrick@fingerrehab.com
Thanks.
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