Broken finger? - General Health Message Board

takeaguess18 · 04-24-2006, 05:53 PM

Tonight I wasn't even doing anything stressful, I was sitting on the floor and put the back of my fingers down on the floor to push myself up (sort of off my knuckles, if you see what I'm saying) and felt something give and severe pain in my right ringer finger. I thought maybe I'd dislocated it but the knuckle isn't sore and it looks in place.

However the finger is angled to the left (it's natural resting place is pushed up against my middle finger, even when I spread my fingers), I have moderate pain down the finger and in my palm (though not on the back of my hand), and severe pain on trying to straighten my finger, or make a fist (which I can't). It's very tender to the touch right where my finger meets my palm (on the underside, not the top) and all along the first bone of my finger on the top side. If I straighten the finger manually and push on the top, I get excrutiating pain all the way to my fingertip and into my wrist.

The odd thing is it hasn't swelled in the slightest! Does this sound like a fracture? And if it is, does it require any kind of treatment, or will it heal on it's own?

wakkochic17 · 04-25-2006, 08:16 AM

if it's crooked, then I would say it's fractured (when I broke my toe I knew it because it wasn't sitting straight). When I broke my toe I had more bruising than swelling. I would say your best bet is to go to your doctor (call them and tell them what happened, they should be able to get you in and it's cheaper than waisting money on the ER). They will probably want to do X-Rays and they can give you the proper bandages/splints to wear on your finger so that it heals straight and properly. If you let it heal on it's own without going to the doc, it could heal crooked, etc...

feelbad · 04-28-2006, 06:51 AM

This could concievably be one of a few things.either a fracture,a tendon issue or ligament problem.all of which really do need a docs attention for evaluation and or possible treatment.i blew the ligaments out on both sides of my middle finger while at work and having just a mild fall backwards.I placed my hand out behind me and landed like right on the finger tips?yeowch.any one of the things I mentioned could cause their own types of problems if not treated appropriately and soon.I ended up needing alot of hand therepy just to try and regain the movement back in that finger when I had seen a really incrediblt stupid ortho and withour really fully evaluating tha problem just said it was a tendon problem and threw an actual cast on me that like almost completely covered my entire hand and almost up to my elbow.well it was not a tendon problem.when he took the cast off two weeks later,the finger looked just exactly the same as the day he put it on there,still black and blue and swollen.I mean nothing had changed.I sought out a second opinion with a good freinds hand surgeon and lo and behold,here I had actually blew out the ligaments on both sides of my finger.

the thing is,by that time,a "capsule' had formed around the knuckle which makes it very very hard to,even with PT really break that thing down and be able to really work well with that finger to get it back to somewhat normal.

that capsule formation is really the biggest reason you need to seek attention as soon as possible.you just need to find out for sure just what the injured area really is,and hopefully,if you don't have the misfortune of having an idiot ortho like mine,they will treat it appropriately the first time and therefore minimize any possible permanent impairment.

to this day(this happened back in 98?) i have a really huge middle knuckle on the finger intself with limited movement.I would make an appt today with your doc for an eval and an x ray to see just what if anything was actually damaged.

this really does need attention as soon as you can get in.please keep me posted,and good luck,hopefully this is just some sort of bruising and nothing major.but get that looked at today.FB

TtDream · 04-28-2006, 08:07 AM

takeaguess18 That sounds the same sort of thing that I did to my finger, I fractured it.
It would best if you go have it checked out they do a x-ray on it.
I still remember the foam wedges they used to position my finder while the x-ray was done and it was painful and she didn't seem to care.