An Imperfect Journey: The Story of Spraining and Healing My Finger

December 31, 2021 I was helping my wife with some painting, I ran downstairs to get something and when I came back up I tripped and jammed my pointer finger on my right (dominant) hand. I felt it bend towards the sky in a way it never should. I immediately went flush and felt a bit faint from the pain. I was fully prepared to pull my hand out from under me and see a dislocated finger. Luckily when I pulled it out, my finger was still attached! I slowly bent it and realized that it wasn’t broken. It hurt like hell, but it wasn’t broken. 

I had been snowing a bunch out here and my new friend C had invited me down to his place to climb on his 40 degree Tension board on New Years day. First of all, I am weak and lack technique on the steeps. Second, I have a freshly sprained finger. I have a strict no bail policy for myself so being the responsible adult I am I went anyway. When I arrived we briefly discussed my jammed finger and decided, “that’s what tape is for”. I flailed my way up some v0-v2s with my finger buddy taped. 

Wake up the next day and my finger is a bit swollen and hurts. I can’t bend it due to the swelling. That week the Creek started to dry out and I wanted to climb. On January 5th we had our first day down in IC after work, decided to hop on some fingers in a corner and do a few laps before the sun went down. My finger hurt in the .5 corner but I shrugged it off. I figured it would just get better over time if I ignored it.

Fast forward to March, we had a short ski trip planned at Silverton with a few friends of ours. One of the people we were with is a PT. I had been climbing through Jan/Feb with the finger injured. I still couldn’t fully bend it, but it got a tiny bit less painful, but still hurt to press on the side of it. She evaluated my sprain and told me that it was a moderate sprain and it would not get better without splinting it. Splinting a finger as a climber is such a bummer. So being the responsible adult I am, I chose to ignore this advice for the time being. We discussed my options for climbing if I didn’t do anything about it. She advised against finger cracks and anything that would really torque it. I knew I had a month-long trip with no climbing coming up in May. My sister was having a baby back east and I volunteered to be around for the month to help out. I ordered these splints from Jeff Bezos, and tried splinting on and off throughout the end of March and April. Without any real consistency I didn’t gain much. It would bring down the swelling a bit, but then I would climb and it would swell back up.

At the end of April I did a week long climbing trip and didn’t pay much attention to my finger knowing that I had May to work on splinting it. I started splinting it around the last week of April. Per the advice of my PT I was allowed to remove my splint when I was at work on the computer and showering, but really protect the finger even while I was sleeping. I would swap and wash the splints every day since they would get a bit funky if I didn’t. I splinted it for 2 weeks straight. My friend explained to me that “when ligaments first heal they go quickly and look like a messy plate of spaghetti, with some rest and some progressive activities the idea is that it will help them remodel the ligament to look like straight raw spaghetti that is strong.” During this time I lost most flexibility in my finger. I moved from splinting to buddy taping with little velcro finger straps. I began doing this video for flexibility, after about 8 days I had gained back most my movement.

I began doing some progressive loading on the finger by climbing this really easy boulder in the town I was staying in. The route was an easy 5.5 that had lots of large downward pulling edges. I would focus on pulling straight down and loading the finger slowly and methodically without torquing it. I also got to boulder a hand crack on that same rock which didn’t upset my finger at all. My finger felt really weak from the 4 weeks of rest. 

When I landed out west at the end of May I was super stoked to climb and hopped right on Blind Faith in Eldo. I definitely strained my finger and ended up splinting it again. After a few days of splinting I started up with a video my PT friend recommended. I did choose to go the supplement route mentioned in the video. I am not sure if it actually does anything physically, but it definitely sets a timer in my head for when it would be best to do my PT and I think that keeps me from putting it off and forgetting about it for the day. During the initial month of healing I frequently got over-stoked climbing and strained the finger. I would just splint it for a few days and let it chill out and resume PT. 

During June I missed a huge chunk of PT due to my dad getting sick and passing. I frequented a climbing gym in south Jersey called Elite Climbing and got to load the finger a lot. Sometimes too much, but given life circumstances I needed to climb. I did have to splint it for a few days in June. I have now been doing the exercises in the TFC video since August about 5-7 days per week. In addition I added some exercises for my elbow and wrist tendonitis.

It's now November, 11 months after I hurt my finger and I have to say, my fingers are stronger than ever. I was able to increase the weight of my finger curls from 10 to 20 pounds and the position of my fingers on the jugs I hold has changed to make them a large edge instead of a jug. The 6 minutes per day of finger strengthening has upped my finger crack game significantly especially in the smaller .3/.4 pumpy sizes. This was a super rad side effect of doing the PT. I will continue on my finger journey and keep up with my PT and climbing finger cracks. Glad I finally have my finger back.

Climb on!