Chronic inflammation of pulley injury

Ruth Smitton

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Can anyone give me some advice as I'm very worried about my finger.  I tore an A3 pulley (I'm fairly certain) in my ring finger nearly 12 weeks ago. There wasn't much pain but it 'crunched' and i couldn't bend the top part of my finger right into my palm like I could with the other fingers, and it just felt wrong.  I gave it 10 days rest then started climbing gently on it supporting it by taping so I couldn't crimp.  After the first 10 days I have been immersing it in cold water for half an hour twice a day to increase the blood flow to promote healing as suggested on Dave Mcleod's website.  My problem is that it is STILL swollen ( at least a third as fat again as the finger on my other hand) which seems really bizarre as all the info I've read  says the swelling should go down after a few weeks at the most.  I ended up climbing too hard on it only 3 weeks after 1st injuring it so rested it completely for a couple of weeks again but since then I've just been climbing gently and doing open grip dead hanging which doesn't hurt it at all.  Has anyone else had chronic inflammation like this?  I really don't know whether I should climb, rest, pull harder, do deep frictional massage or what! Its driving me crazy.... 

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Javier Elizondo

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Hi Ruth, I have exactly the same problem. It looks like I also tore a pulley in my ring finger, on March 20 . I heard a "pop" in my finger when one of my feet slipped from a hold. Not much pain and I couldn't bend the finger into my palm, just like you (roughly 5mm gap). I started climbing hard again after one week and it got worse. I decided to take anti inflammatory pills for 10 days and rest. I have been resting completely (my finger) the last 6 weeks. I'm a bit worried because my finger still looks a bit swollen compared to the finger in my other hand. The good news is pain has almost completely disappeared and I can bend my finger a bit more, so I am doing some little stretching exercise with it and I'm beginning to think i'm in the good way to recover. Fortunately, we are having the most rainy month in Barcelona in years, so I wouldn't be able to climb anyway. :-) Good luck and have a quick and safe recovery!

Bjoern Alber

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Hi Ruth You will have to be more patient - longer total layoff, medicate with agood antiinflammatory drug, use warm rather than cold immersion in the semiacute phase and use a foamball for regular squeezing to improve circulation. When you after at least 3 week full rest start climbing big sloopers and jug on vertical walls - use tape reinforcement and increase your difficulty slowly so the ligament have a chance to heal. If the rupture is total and disslocated you may be better off with surgery but in case of A3 pulleys this is usually not nessecaryRemember - most important - I can only make an educated guess - you should get a sports medicine trained MD to examine and diagnose your injury - this will avoid loosing a lot of time trying remedies for something you actually don't have Best of luck Björn