UKC

What do you think

I damaged my ring finger on my dominant right hand last night. A little bit of swelling, slight pain, but mainly stiff. Only starting hurting this morning, not at the time. Was doing a lot of overhanging crimps last night. 

Is it worth seeing a Physio about it - or just resting and backing off for climbing for a bit, and doing some gentle recovery over the next week or so.

I live in London and am struggling to find a physio who says they understand climbing injuries. Most seem like general physios and I'm presuming, maybe wrongly, that its best to get someone experienced with finger injuries. 

I once had an injury like that - nothing at the time but woke up the next morning and it was clearly not happy.  If memory serves me correctly I took a few weeks off climbing and did a bit of light physio and it has been fine ever since.

Cristiano Costa is a top climbing physio in London and can absolutely help with finger issues - if you can see him he'll absolutely be able to help.

Good luck with it, I'm sure it's nothing too serious and you'll be right as rain in no time.

I would take ibuprofen for a couple of days and ice it an see how you get on.

Ring finger - remove any rings incase of swelling

Ice (15 minutes in iced water).

Ibuprofen gel applied direct to the site.

Give it a few days (no climbing) and see how it feels, then review of you need a physio. Either way, continue with icing until fully healed.

There's evidence that ibuprofen isn't great for tendon recovery. 

If in doubt, see the physio that someone else recommended. In my (extensive) experience of tendon injuries, they don't just get better by themselves. They need to be rested a bit, and then progressively loaded to stimulate tissue repair.

There's loads of stuff online about this (https://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/en_US/stories/experience-story-esther...), so maybe start with that. But if you feel like youre not getting anywhere, I'd just fork out for a physio sooner rather than later. If it doesn't get better, you'll be kicking yourself 2 months down the line. 

If you do need one and can't get it sorted locally, get yourself to Sheffield: lots of physios who specialise in climbing injuries.

As per GDes above, current advice is not to use ibuprofen (or other NSAIDs) for the first few days after a soft tissue injury. It reduces down the inflammation that you need to start the healing process so could prolong recovery.

Yes, my physio has emphasised that only icing should be used for the first week.