[iwasmexican]

so my ring finger has been acting up, its gets rather painful when its bent at 90 degrees at the second joint (ie crimping  ) but it feels absolutely fine open handed, to the extent that i can still hang monos on them with no pain whatsoever... i been hot/ cold watering it for about the last week and a bit, which seems to help a tiny bit but not much.
before that i had a month over christmas where i didnt climb at all as well so it hasnt gotten better from taking a break (it started to appear probably a week before christmas).

has anyone else had any experiences of anything like this? im really not sure what to do, resting hasnt helped, and getting back into climbing isnt helping either... 

[Red]

i had a similar thing... resting didn't seem to help at all. I iced it (ice cube straight on to the knuckle) straight after climbing for about 20 minutes, over a two week period, which got the blood flowing. I also didn't pull down on le crimp too much, and kept my sessions short. That really helped and it got better.

Also, under strict instructions, I resisted temptation and did not play with it at all - not even a little squeeze or massage.

[Nibile]

I had an injured ring finger for months. it started healing when I started taping it properly, that is taping it so that it cannot bend. climbing openhanded on my board, to be honest, seemed to speed up the recovery process, but that could easily be only illusion of a naive mind.
ice after training and climbing if possible, and the odd natural antiinflammatories, arnica, MSN, glucosamine.

[Nibile]

Also, under strict instructions, I resisted temptation and did not play with it at all - not even a little squeeze or massage.

Dylan must have been very sad.
 

[Omar15]

Just my two cents, but have you tried climbing on it without crimping at all? Not even crimping a little bit - only ever open handing stuff, even if it means falling off. I've found this is pretty good at speeding up recovery, but it seems quite difficult to stay open hand the whole time. Also have you tried open hand deadhanging on an edge? Its fun and keeps you strong.

[iwasmexican]

it started healing when I started taping it properly, that is taping it so that it cannot bend.

is there a right/wrong way to tape a finger like that or is it just anyway that stops it from bending is good?

also i dont have access to ice really (living in uni halls) but cold water from the tap ll work just as fine right? i mean i just need to get the blood flowing to the finger?

Also, under strict instructions, I resisted temptation and did not play with it at all - not even a little squeeze or massage.

is there a specific reason for this...? and did it help?

[Nibile]

I generally tape a figure of 8 with the tape crossing just under the joint. it's not important to tape it tight, it's important (in my experience) that you make more laps so that it's resistant to bending.

[Jim]

Stop crimping, it makes you weak

[Red]

Also, under strict instructions, I resisted temptation and did not play with it at all - not even a little squeeze or massage.

is there a specific reason for this...? and did it help?

research shows you should only massage scar tissue a long time after an injury has healed, or in most cases it will re-inflame the injury.

cold tap water isn't as cold as ice so won't be as effective. you should be icing it all the time if it is quite a new injury, then contrast baths of hot and cold when the swelling has disappeared.

[ducko]

I had this problem too, resting didn't help me either, instead I did lots of streching, used the H style brace to support, climbed open handed and took ibuprofen, it's taken me about two months but I'm pretty much healed now I've tried crimps and it feels fine but I try avoid it now, good luck!

[mrjonathanr]

Mummify it. Open hand everything (well you'll have, to taped rigid) and start off on big holds progressively upping ante. accept this may be months not weeks and it will go.

[dannybrownclimb]

Injury to your ring finger is very common - where you describe it is probably the classic A2 pulley, otherwise known as Climber's Finger. Crimping puts through up to 40 times more force at this pulley so even a small amount of damage to the ligament will cause pain when tested. An open handed grip evenly distributes the force between all five pulleys so would probably cause less pain. The advice above is generally good - ice, rest, etc. Here, at the clinic we have pioneered a new way of taping using kineseotape for long term effective rehab. Go to www.919clinic.co.uk for more info. Cheers

[iwasmexican]

Here, at the clinic we have pioneered a new way of taping using kineseotape for long term effective rehab. Go to www.919clinic.co.uk for more info. Cheers

thanks they had a decent video about taping, will look into getting some of that kineseotape stuff, and thanks everyone else, i ve been icing it a few times a day and taping it to hell, hopefully it ll be better by april for font

[iwasmexican]

also sorry to spam this but i ve been thinking, since about september i ve been campus boarding pretty hard, like 3-4 hour sessions a week, and the injury seemed to have come up once i had stopped campussing. and although it might have just been in my head i swear the finger felt a lot better after a tentative openhanded campus session the other day, could the two be related?

[slackline]

Cross reference

[iwasmexican]

so saw the physio today, he said it was probably something to do with the tendon sheath, anyone had any experience with this?

[ducko]

I have had trouble with my ring fingers, had the same trouble with healing, my fingers are now 100% and what I've done is firstly had no rest time as this didn't seem to help, use H method for taping look on YouTube for a video, this pretty much stops your ability to crimp when climbing, when climbing I have started going open handed and it does feel weird but is much better in the long run, anti inflammatorys help of course, climb anything that does not cause pain in your finger, if there's any pain stop, next thing get a stress ball thing and when your not climbing keep squeezing this as it increases bloodflow to your fingers the more blood going through the area the faster you will recover, good luck!

[Paul B]

so saw the physio today, he said it was probably something to do with the tendon sheath, anyone had any experience with this?

yes; sheath problems always felt very different to standard pulleys for me. They'd seem fine then I'd suddenly get a very sharp pain if I did anything that aggravated the area.

[iwasmexican]

so saw the physio today, he said it was probably something to do with the tendon sheath, anyone had any experience with this?

yes; sheath problems always felt very different to standard pulleys for me. They'd seem fine then I'd suddenly get a very sharp pain if I did anything that aggravated the area.

have you had similar problems then? did you manage to get rid of them?

[Paul B]

I got rid of that issue yes, doing the usual; icing LOTS then gradually increasing the intensity. Despite my recent posting, the simple fact is that all finger injuries seem to be treated in the same way.

If its angry the day after you've done to much, do less next time. Oh and ice.

[miso soup]

also sorry to spam this but i ve been thinking, since about september i ve been campus boarding pretty hard, like 3-4 hour sessions a week, and the injury seemed to have come up once i had stopped campussing. and although it might have just been in my head i swear the finger felt a lot better after a tentative openhanded campus session the other day, could the two be related?

That's interesting.  I was also doing regular campusing a while ago, then I popped something in my right wrist and then wrecked something in my left shoulder.  Whilst climbing (or possibly working in the case of my shoulder, didn't actually feel it go), not campusing.  Laid off for a couple weeks then started climbing again, taking it easy and not campusing or any other training.  Then my right middle finger tweaked.  I can hang off a small campus rung open handed and it feels fine but almost anything else doesn't.  It's not an A2, it's in what I think is the A3 and 4 area between the first and second knuckles (counting in from the end of the finger, I'm not totally up on finger terminology).

So I had another lay-off, icing the finger.  I'm now back to light climbing with finger taped and contrast baths after.  It's getting better.  But it has now been over six months since I was injury free and I'm sick of taking it easy.  I want to crush but I'm scared of making things worse.  Feeling myself getting weaker is a horrible thing that I've never really had to deal with before.

I've also been firmly massaging the finger because I read somewhere that it helps.  Oops.  Interestingly sometimes when I pulled on the finger to stretch it out I could feel it in the dodgy part of my wrist.  So it's probably all connected and is leading to all sorts of terrible imbalances in my body.