do understand all injuries are different but think the docs wont have a clue about this...
hey, my sympathies. Talking as someone who has self-managed a number of finger/wrist injuries, I think you're on the right track with that treatment idea. I'd say you should try to up the icing sessions to 4 times daily for best results.
I'm not a doc, but I think that it may not be quite fair to say that a doc 'won't have a clue' about this. I know what you mean: as climbers, we kind of expect a gilt-edged fix-it service, a bit like a walk-in
old-skool motor mechanics' workshop, but for our fecked bodies.
A couple of times in the past noticed I did notice the nonplussed reaction of a GP when faced with an injury like this, and I wouldn't present such an injury to a GP any longer. It's not because I don't think they understand such injuries, but because they don't understand the obsession with the injury. Conservatively, the protocol for an acute soft-tissue injury says complete rest. But we don't want to hear that.
So what we're after is really rather self-serving: a recipe for fixing the finger as quickly as possible on the one hand, but carte-blanche to carry on training on the other. That level of close management of an injury would cost several orders of magnitude more than our fair share and certainly more than a poor old primary care trust has at its disposal. The only real option is to pay a physio, especially one specialising in finger injuries induced by climbing, but of course that's going to cost.
It's easy to not see it at the time, but we all develop these huge blind-spots when we're injured, refusing to see that only worsened inflammation, extended injury time and mental anguish result from prolonging training during the acute stage of an injury. The only reason I know this is that I've done the same thing, perhaps five times now. Each time I do show incrementally more patience and common sense, but it's always a struggle. If your symptoms are as severe as you say, up to two weeks days' patience now (laying off all training) could save you a ton of woe later.
Hope it's a quick heal.