UKC

Have I injured my finger? While pinching a hold I felt a small twinge and my finger felt a tiny bit odd but felt fine after about a minute. I have a bruise which has tracked from the inside of the joint outwards (think H shaped with the horizontal bit across the crease of the joint) and now surrounds the whole of the joint in varying degrees of purple-ness. The finger doesn't hurt and seems to have a full range of motion, I haven't tested it to failure but it doesn't feel weak. It feels a little tight when I close it into a fist but doesn't hurt. Twisting and manipulation doesn't hurt. I've previously broken and dislocated the finger (years ago) and it doesn't feel like that.

Any ideas as to what I have done?

Typically the best activity for finger injuries is the R.I.C.E protocol, which consists of rest, ice, compression and elevation. However, this has now been superseded by the P.A.S.TA protocol, backed up by all the literature, which is as follows.

P - crank like hell in clown shoes and wait for the pop

A - ask for diagnosis and treatment on the internet and get genuinely terrible advice, fair to middling advice, or quite good advice to a different problem. Note that it can be difficult to differentiate between the above.

S - for optimal results heavily stretch the affected area while still in the acute injury phase

T - for optimal results heavily tape the affected are while still in the acute phase, and as above, and crank like hell

A - ask the opinion of a trained professional (definitely not a gp)

To address points A1 and A2 of the P.AS.TA protocol, I'd suggest bending the affected finger backwards until a fair to moderate degree of pain is accomplished, then keep pushing, untill a snap is heard. This is the positive differential diagnosis signal for a broken finger, and likely an augmenting A1-5/C1-4 pulley strain. 6-6+many weeks of aggravation. HTH

Thanks. As this isn't a really important finger (3rd finger of right hand and so not required for key activities like nose unclogging, driver signalling and mouse use) I think the PASTA protocol maybe overkill.

I've had a fair few bruise-type injuries which have seemed to definitely not be a tendon injury. They have tended to get sorted in a week.

One time my whole finger went completely blue after pretty much dynoing for the jug on l'Horla. It went numb in the cold for perhaps a month, but besides a bit of ice, I gave it no treatment.