Ow with fuck sauce or Fuck with ow sauce, you be the judge

[lydy]

So, this is the first thing I have touch-typed in a month. It's, um, a little rocky. The nice surgeon told me to stop buddy-taping the fingers today, and to start exercising. Basically, I'm supposed to try to make a fist many times a day. He said that it should hurt. And oh, does it hurt. My dislocated finger neither bends all the way nor straightens all the way, and attempts to make it do so hurt like the devil. The surgeon said that I have three months. That's it. After that, whatever use I've gotten back will be all that's available. And, I've used up a month already. So, when you put it that way, I want to exercise a lot. But then I do that thing, and I start to wonder if maybe this partially crippled finger wouldn't be a perfectly livable choice, after all.

So, that's the finger news. Aren't we all thrilled, now?

Comments

[riverrocks.livejournal.com]

Can you get any of your medical practitioners to send you to physical/occupational therapy with a hand specialist? I strongly recommend seeing an actual physical/occupational therapist. Surgeons are good at the knife part but not always the recovery part. And exact deadlines like that are problematic. I had surgery this summer that impacted the use of my arm and shoulder. The surgeon did an excellent job at his part, but was also under the impression that three sessions of in hospital PT (plus the warning that failure to do a vaguely described exercise daily meant permanent loss of movement) would get me back to functional. I pushed for outpatient PT and I'm glad I did. The exercises I had from the hospital were not all appropriate for my situation, to the point of making some things worse and possibly causing added injury, and I also needed to start a lot slower than most people. Six months out and I am seeing much improvement. I'm very glad I pushed for access to a someone who could actually walk me through the recovery process.

[arkuat]

What riverrocks said. Outpatient PT if you can get it.

[cowfan.livejournal.com]

My next-door neighbor does physical therapy for hands as her job. I don't know the details, but I could connect you if you are interested.

[graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)]

Outpatient PT is excellent advice.

In the meantime, you might want to try heat before exercising and heat or ice after exercising, and to do the exercises really slowly. (It's really easy to tense and hasten when it hurts, which is, thank you O blind chances of evolution, generally not what you want.)

[elisem.livejournal.com]

Another voice for outpatient PT here. It's a lot less painful in the long run -- not to mention cheaper -- to get competent care up front. Hand specialist definitely, because hands are complicated!

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

I don't know enough about the US medical system to offer advice, but you do have my sympathies.