At that point, it's very difficult to treat. I've had patients who have, unfortunately, not sought medical attention immediately, and they turn out to have a fracture or dislocation, say, eight weeks down the road. If things seem abnormal, aren't working normally for you, it's definitely worth coming in for a quick evaluation.ĭr: Miller: How about duration? If it goes on beyond a certain number of days, would you advise that that be taken care of? I believe that if you wait too long, then you might have your irreparable damage and not being able to move that finger like it should be moved in the future. So I think that can be an important guide. Every patient knows their body and knows their pain tolerance more than any physician out there does. It's relatively easy to get an X-ray to make sure that there's no more serious underlying injury for that. I don't believe every jammed figure needs to come in for evaluation, but any patient that's concerned should seek further evaluation. Miller: So should everyone with a jammed finger be seen by a physician and have an X-ray, or is there a way to tell whether your jammed finger might be worse, to the point that it ought to be evaluated for a fracture dislocation.
If there's a more serious injury, oftentimes that looks exactly the same for the first few days or even first few weeks.ĭr. Whether it's something like just a jammed finger, whether there's no more significant damage than just that. Early on, the finger hurts, it's swollen, you don't want to move it. Miller: Maybe there's really no way to know that. Occasionally, it can represent a more significant injury, such as a fracture, or broken bone, or dislocation, basically where the joint comes apart. Nikolas: More often than not, when somebody jams their finger, that swells and it's painful, usually it's just that, just a jammed finger. What's the downside of not coming in to be seen for a jammed finger? Most of the time, maybe we don't think about that as we should. Nik, a lot of times we get jammed fingers and we stub them on stuff, or we play sports and we smack the ends of them, and then the joints swell up in the fingers. Tom Miller and I'm here with Nikolas Kazmers, and he's a specialist in hand surgery and orthopedic surgeon here at the University of Utah, in the Department of Orthopedics.
Miller: You jammed your finger? Is that just it or is it something else that you ought to worry about? We're going to talk about that next on Scope Radio. I have been stretching every day,and I've been able to be fairly active for a couple weeks, but it doesnt seem to be getting much better.Dr. My neck and shoulders are also still really stiff. Should I worry? I'm just concerned I'll collapse it if it gets hit somehow or something. Thats not normal, I'm pretty sure, at least after double checking with a few people, it seems to be fairly abnormal.
Then I notice if i grasp it between finger and thumb, I can pull it to the side almost two full inches. Then I notice that my adams apple is sore, which I have never felt before after a cartwheel ride. Now, as I get a bit better, I swear something feels weird, and as somethings start to hurt less, I am more sure of this. I didnt hit my head at all, but decided to get x rayed just because. I let a ski get away from me in the flats, and hit a roller, fell, hit my shoulder and neck on the uphill side of a roller, cartwheeled over a trough and caught the uphill side of the next roller in my shoulder/neck again, although slightly differently I think. Over a month ago now, I took a moderately brutal cartwheel ride at snowbird coming out the bottom of mineral basin with speed.