Finger Injury Question

I recently got a weird finger injury that I'm hoping someone can help me out with. Last Friday while hanging from the 2-finger pockets on a hangboard, I started feeling a slight pain around the top knuckle of my middle finger. More accurately, the pain was just below the knuckle on the middle phalanx and on the back/side of the finger (not on the palm side). I stopped my workout immediately, went home, and rested up for the weekend.

The first night I had some lingering pain in my finger but then it felt fine after that. It still continues to feel tight on the back of the finger when I trying to squeeze my hand into a tight fist.

Yesterday I went back to the gym just to test it out and see how pulling on it would feel. I warmed up well and as soon as I started getting on some harder problems the dull pain came back. No sharp pains or any sudden twinges, just a dull pain around the knuckle that just didn't feel right. I ended my workout right away again and I'm back home resting it up.

Any idea what this could be, how best to treat it, and how long it might take to heal? Thanks for any help.

Sounds to me like crimping is your favorite thing to do. Different people do different things to treat this. Stop climbing for months, tape them to the point of going purple, cold water treatment, or give up climbing.

Personally, (taking it your a gym climber who likes to work the harder bouldering problems that require the 3 finger pull-ups on sh*t feet)I just down grade, work on 3's and 4's for a day, then get back out to the harder problems. My fingers always get tight feeling after a few hours of working harder problems. Some times the pain is pretty hard to bare, but they work for me. The pain isn't coming back more often, in fact, as i stay with grades, the pain is less frequent.

But stay off those overhanging crimpy doom problems that the guys with no shirts yelling frantically are on. My .02.

- mike