UKC

Tendon Problems

New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
 Elrond 08 Oct 2011
Dont know if anyone can help with this....

I was in the gym the other day on a hard crimpy problem, I was hanging off 3 fingers on my right hand when I heard a 'pop' and my ring finger and the tendon with itstarted hurting like crap. When I now put this finger in a very specific place it starts to hurt again.

Anyone know what this is and/or know what I should do about it?

Thanks in advance
 dr_botnik 09 Oct 2011
In reply to scelestus:

rest. rest. rest. 2-3 weeks. start gently using it when the pain fades, but gentle, don't rush the recovery will only make it worse. other than that, warm up properly in future to avoid reinjury? (is that even a word??) not much more to say really. maybe find a good book to read whilst you're healing?
In reply to scelestus: Apply ice to the area, for 20mins, as much as every hour if you can.
BruceWee 18 Oct 2011
In reply to scelestus: Try this.
Put your hand flat on a table palm up.
Hold your ring finger down and very carefully and curl your pinky up.
If you feel any pain at all then stop.
Take a week or so off and then go back to climbing but on easy routes. Before you climb tape your ring finger to your pinky. Stop if it gets the slightest bit painful.

It sounds like what happened to me. After it happened it was really confusing since on most type of holds including crimps it was fine but every so often I would get a shooting pain through my ring finger. I took a lot of time off using ice therapy but every time I came back the same thing would happen. Also, it would sometimes happen doing every day things like opening a jar or using a door handle

Eventually I came across an article in one of the american climbing magazines that recommended doing the test above. It said that the problem was when you were gripping something with the pinky curled up.

After I started taping the fingers together it was fine. I also started avoiding crimping and working on open hand. At first I dropped a couple of grades but I stuck with it and now I'm climbing a higher grade than I was before.
 Raskolnik 18 Oct 2011
In reply to scelestus:
Definitely sounds like a ruptured pulley tendon. Depending on the severity you're probably looking at 2 or 3 months starting off resting and applying ice (see link below) then moving on to easier climbs open-handing everything.
Read these links from Dave Macleod's blog:

http://onlineclimbingcoach.blogspot.com/2010/05/pulley-injuries-article.htm...
http://onlineclimbingcoach.blogspot.com/2010/05/a2-pulley-injuries-review-r...
j.sprackling 18 Oct 2011
Hi, it sounds like you have a similar to what I had last year, I damaged a pulley tendon... 'A2 in this picture'...

http://www.bendandmend.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/finger_anatomy_sm....

My advice would be to rest as the other guys have said. Tape that finger up long after you think it has healed. I taped my finger for probably nearly 6months until I was convinced it had fully healed.

Hope that helps. Jon

New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
Loading Notifications...