[TheAudioDude]

Well day two is much better than day one. I took two vicodins before bed at midnight last night, and I woke up at 2 a.m. with absolutely no pain. After getting up at 9, the excruciating pain came back, so my dad took me to the surgeon's office. The bandage was a bit too tight so he re-dressed it. Man that was beyond excruciating. Apparently there's no painless way to remove and re-bandage such an injury. Right now the pain is very minimal.

I actually ended up getting a refill prescription on my vicodins, which I can take to the pharmacy on Saturday.

 

[Wmcmanus]

Hang in there, man. Better days are to come. It's painful just reading about it, but do keep us posted because we're all wishing you a speedy recovery.

 

[TheAudioDude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wmcmanus /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hang in there, man. Better days are to come. It's painful just reading about it, but do keep us posted because we're all wishing you a speedy recovery.

Thank you very much. And yes, the worst is behind me.

It'll be weird regaining use of my two fingers; I have no doubt that I'll be afraid to put any stress on them. But I guess injuries like this are just as much mental as they are physical.

 

[TheAudioDude]

Well it's been almost 3 weeks since my surgery and things aren't going as well as they should. My pinky finger is healing nicely; I got the stitches out about a week ago so now it just has a scab on the wound.

The finger I had surgery on got infected recently. A few days ago it was fine, but maybe two days ago, my big knuckle started to swell up and became red. I thought this might be from stressing my finger at work, but the next day it hurt to the touch and was redder. I changed my bandage and noticed a tiny bit of pus leaking out of my wound where the stitches are, further up my finger. The only redness is at my knuckle, BTW.

The next morning (yesterday) I called my surgeon, but he was out for the day, so the receptionist got a hold of him and he sent in a prescription for 500mg pills of Cephalexin. I began taking them as soon as I got them and a tiny bit of the redness has receeded, but it's still swollen and full of pus. Luckily I don't have any red lines going up my arm, but I'm still keeping a close eye on it.

Last night I was changing my bandage again and managed to squeeze out a bit of pus, which helped a bit with the swelling. I'll see what I can do today, but it's probably worth it to take a trip to the ER and have them remove the pus.

Anyways, just thought I'd give an update for anyone who cares.

 

[3602]

Ow. Yeah, there's always a chance of infections after surgery. In extreme cases, when all medicine failed, chlorine bleach was poured on the affected area. Seriously.
The infection. Did the surgeons check whether there are foreign bodies lodged in your finger? They better did.

 

[TheAudioDude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 3602 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Ow. Yeah, there's always a chance of infections after surgery. In extreme cases, when all medicine failed, chlorine bleach was poured on the affected area. Seriously. The infection. Did the surgeons check whether there are foreign bodies lodged in your finger? They better did.

Yeah, the night it happened the ER doctor checked before stitching it up, and the surgeon checked while doing surgery.

Bleach? Wow. I hope it doesn't come to that. But if it does get that extreme, it's a hell of a lot better than amputation.

 

[Uncle Erik]

Hang in there. And don't bleach your finger!

 

[Erik_C]

I had the same injury about 15 years ago. I'm no medical doctor, but I remember having physical therapy. The therapy was that I had to put on a glove that had tiny fishing weights hanging from the end of each finger, and I had to move my fingers around 4-5 times/day while wearing the gloves. For about a month. Something to do with keeping the tendon from scarring too much and freezing in place. You might want to double-check with your doc that you don't need any sort of physical therapy.

Here's that my finger looks like today. You can barely see the scar. The cut I put in the finger goes down and to the right from the middle of the finger. The surgeons cut above the knuckle and down to the left to make a triangle flap to pull back and access the tendon to sew it back together:

I do not have 100% flexibility in the finger. The tendon is a tiny bit shorter and as a result my finger doesn't fully bend, as you can see here:

Anyway, it is a crappy injury, but I'm proof that it's possible to heal and be back to normal in a couple months.

Hang in there...

-Erik

 

[TheAudioDude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Erik_C /img/forum/go_quote.gif I had the same injury about 15 years ago. I'm no medical doctor, but I remember having physical therapy. The therapy was that I had to put on a glove that had tiny fishing weights hanging from the end of each finger, and I had to move my fingers around 4-5 times/day while wearing the gloves. For about a month. Something to do with keeping the tendon from scarring too much and freezing in place. You might want to double-check with your doc that you don't need any sort of physical therapy. Here's that my finger looks like today. You can barely see the scar. The cut I put in the finger goes down and to the right from the middle of the finger. The surgeons cut above the knuckle and down to the left to make a triangle flap to pull back and access the tendon to sew it back together: I do not have 100% flexibility in the finger. The tendon is a tiny bit shorter and as a result my finger doesn't fully bend, as you can see here: Anyway, it is a crappy injury, but I'm proof that it's possible to heal and be back to normal in a couple months. Hang in there... -Erik

Wow, that's actually great to hear. It really makes you stop and think just how much you rely on your hands, and even injuring just a finger can have a big impact on your daily life. But I guess these are the things that build character.

When I asked about physical therapy he said it wasn't necessary since I'm young (24) and that I should recover quickly because I'm more active and resilient than an older person. I'll make sure to ask again though. Do typing and videogames count as physical therapy?

During physical therapy, did you ever have any fears of pushing it too far? The only thing I'm afraid of is stressing my tendon so much that it gets injured/snaps again. Even while changing my bandage, I take a long time and baby my finger. Like I said before, this injury seems just as much mental as it is physical.

 

[TheAudioDude]

Small update: Last night I was finally getting around to rolling my TS 7236s, so I decided to change my bandage while my amp heated up. I began unrolling the gauze and I saw more blood than usual, and what I saw after taking off the gauze made me think that my stitches/wound opened up. I quickly re-rolled the gauze onto the wound and bandaged it back up and went to the ER.

When I got there it turned out I was missing one stitch, and what happened was the scab came off, so a little part of my wound was exposed. Not as bad as I thought. I asked about the infection and excess pus still in my knuckle, and the doctor drained some and took a culture sample. He said that my surgeon may have to open the wound back up again to remove the infection, since my antibiotics seem only to be preventing further infection rather than removing the crap already there.

Anyways, I should be seeing my surgeon sometime tomorrow to discuss what the next step is.

 

[3602]

^Yeesh. I once had an open wound, not very deep but very large in surface. For two weeks there was pus, and the final days (I believe) fungi started to grow. The wound was becoming green.
Docs scraped the stuff off (painful, thank you), sprayed a liquid, and told me to wash thoroughly with soap. The next morning the wound is already 50% healed.
If the infection is deep inside, however, then it would be effective to scrape (or suction) off whatever gunk is inside, clean it thoroughly, re-stitch, and you take some antibiotics orally. Guess the original stitch was not done clean enough.
Hope you get better!

 

[TheAudioDude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 3602 /img/forum/go_quote.gif ^Yeesh. I once had an open wound, not very deep but very large in surface. For two weeks there was pus, and the final days (I believe) fungi started to grow. The wound was becoming green. Docs scraped the stuff off (painful, thank you), sprayed a liquid, and told me to wash thoroughly with soap. The next morning the wound is already 50% healed. If the infection is deep inside, however, then it would be effective to scrape (or suction) off whatever gunk is inside, clean it thoroughly, re-stitch, and you take some antibiotics orally. Guess the original stitch was not done clean enough. Hope you get better!

Ouch. Well my finger isn't that bad. It's actually healing very nicely; the ER doctor was impressed. I just have all that excess pus draining out of the wound. Hopefully they can take care of it without surgery... I really wouldn't like to miss more work.

 

[Erik_C]

I had my injury when I was 21, but still needed physical therapy. So young-ness alone isn't reason enough to skip rehab, in my experience.

Funny story about pushing it too far. I had to go back a couple weeks after surgery to have the stitches taken out. That's when I was told to start physical therapy. The surgeon asked me how far I could bend the finger. I showed him; it was maybe 15% of normal. I remember saying "that's as far as I can go, and I don't want to stress the tendon." The surgeon took my finger and forcefully bent it the whole way. Wow, that hurt. Second most pain in my life, after my gallstones (which hadn't yet happened, so it was the most pain I'd ever felt up to that time). But he made the point that his suturing was first-rate and that it wasn't going to come undone, so I should work the finger as hard as I can to get as much range of motion back as possible.

Good luck. Feel free to PM me with questions...

-Erik

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheAudioDude /img/forum/go_quote.gif Wow, that's actually great to hear. It really makes you stop and think just how much you rely on your hands, and even injuring just a finger can have a big impact on your daily life. But I guess these are the things that build character. When I asked about physical therapy he said it wasn't necessary since I'm young (24) and that I should recover quickly because I'm more active and resilient than an older person. I'll make sure to ask again though. Do typing and videogames count as physical therapy? During physical therapy, did you ever have any fears of pushing it too far? The only thing I'm afraid of is stressing my tendon so much that it gets injured/snaps again. Even while changing my bandage, I take a long time and baby my finger. Like I said before, this injury seems just as much mental as it is physical.

 

[TheAudioDude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Erik_C /img/forum/go_quote.gif I had my injury when I was 21, but still needed physical therapy. So young-ness alone isn't reason enough to skip rehab, in my experience. Funny story about pushing it too far. I had to go back a couple weeks after surgery to have the stitches taken out. That's when I was told to start physical therapy. The surgeon asked me how far I could bend the finger. I showed him; it was maybe 15% of normal. I remember saying "that's as far as I can go, and I don't want to stress the tendon." The surgeon took my finger and forcefully bent it the whole way. Wow, that hurt. Second most pain in my life, after my gallstones (which hadn't yet happened, so it was the most pain I'd ever felt up to that time). But he made the point that his suturing was first-rate and that it wasn't going to come undone, so I should work the finger as hard as I can to get as much range of motion back as possible. Good luck. Feel free to PM me with questions... -Erik

Yikes, that nearly sent shivers up my spine. I believe that it will hold, kind of like wood glue. The glued joint is usually stronger than the wood itself, but I still have doubts. I'll be glad when it's all over. Thanks for the reassurance man.

 

[KingStyles]

Quote:

Let me tell you... getting a needle pushed into not one, but two deep lacerations in your fingers hurts like the bowels of hell. After that it was smooth sailing.

I agree with that. I ripped my knuckle up a couple of months ago. It would seem that they would give you the numbing shot around it. NOOOoo, they jam it straight inti and under the split. OUCH