Fractured fingertip. How long am I out for?

Anyone done this before and have a decent timeline for recovery?

I've got an avulsion fracture in my PIP joint. It's been about 3 months. 6 weeks of immobilization, 6 weeks of doctors being confusing to me, so I "H" and mummy taped and returned to easy climbing. I finally have gotten back to climbing near where I was but I'm still wary of crimps or pockets.

Spend the money and take the time to go to a good orthopedic doctor.  I wasted months of healing time with a plastic splint that didn't work.  Finger never did heal right.  The Ortho guy knew what he was doing but didn't get to him for 6 months.

Yeah, I’ll second that. Find a good doctor. I’m on my second orthopedic office. The first one wasn’t giving me clear guidance and kept steering towards total immobilization. Found a hand surgeon that has treated climbers and he immediately put me into OT and ordered better imaging to rule out an additional pulley injury. The problem is that all these appointments take a long time to get. I still am waiting on follow up appointments/imaging results and continue to protect the finger/climb very conservatively. 

I just went through this last year. I should have stopped climbing completely and fully immobilized the joint. Instead I did as others here are saying. After a couple months of minimal improvements I finally took a 2 month break from climbing and it healed up and I'm back to full confidence in my finger. It's not that long and worth the wait. Goodluck 

I took 3 months off climbing (fractured fingertip after getting crushed by a flake). I prob could have hangboarded but I just did home workouts (yoga, weightlifting, dance). I saw an orthopedic surgeon who was very chill about the whole thing. It was basically me coming in & him looking at how things were healing & telling me to come back in a month. I had govt insurance (medi-cal) at the time so went w/ whatever was covered. I got lucky that the doc they assigned knew his stuff & had excellent equipment. My first appointment w him was a month after the accident which luckily was nbd. I tried finding a doctor that was a climber or familiar w climbing but it wasn’t in my area/budget. I also worked with an acupuncturist (covered by my insurance) & he did cold laser therapy on my finger twice a month in addition to needles which helped the healing process (soft tissue regeneration?). Never had to fully immobilize it but maybe that was bc my injury was in the tip? I also accident kneeled on it once when it was about a month into healing putting tire chains on & it hurt so bad but nothing bad happened except lots of blood. So even without immobilizing mine healed just fine

When I started climbing again, it took about 2 months for me to feel good on crimps again. I’ll have some discomfort w scar tissue now (2 years later) depending on how small or sharp a hold is & triggering cams can feel weird esp if my fingers are cold bc of nerve damage in my fingertip but I’m all healed. I have a divet in my finger pad & my finger looks smooshed compared to my others but it all works. & I tie my shoes w my middle finger instead of my index. If I ever feel more discomfort (bc I don’t have as much padding in that fingertip bw the outside world & my bone) I can always go get the bone chopped to create more padding

Hope your healing goes smoothly!

Thanks for the advice everyone. It was a workplace injury so I will have some coverage to see an orthopedic surgeon and some rehab in addition to my regular benefits.

Luckily (maybe unluckily, I honestly don’t know) it was a spiral fracture to the tip of my ring finger. There isn’t a ton of pain or swelling and so far I’ve been given a plastic splint and told to buddy tape for the next month.

I think I’ll see if I can find a specialist to really put together a treatment plan beyond my GP. 

An update: 4 more weeks with no pressure on the finger tip and then I can begin loading again. Hopefully climbing by mid April and being able to crimp by summer.