Conditions and injuries of the finger, hand, wrist, forearm and elbow: what they are, how they behave, and when they stop being minor.
Tennis elbow surgery recovery takes 4 to 6 months, and grip can take up to a year. The surgery removes degenerate tendon; loading is still what rebuilds it, which is why the rehab looks like the treatment you had before.
Cut off a fingertip? Press, raise the hand, wrap the part in damp gauze, bag it, put the bag in iced water, and go to the ER now. Most fingertip wounds without exposed bone heal in about 3 to 6 weeks; sensitivity takes months.
A PIP fracture-dislocation takes 6 to 12 weeks to heal, usually with 4 to 6 weeks in an extension block splint, and needs surgery if the joint won’t stay lined up. It only shows on a true side-on X-ray of that one finger.
A Bennett’s or Rolando fracture needs 6 to 12 weeks to heal and at least 6 to 8 weeks in a cast or thumb spica splint. Most need surgery, and pinch strength is the last thing to come back.
A crushed fingertip’s bone usually heals in 3 to 4 weeks with a small splint. The nail decides the long-term result: drain a throbbing black nail early, and get a split, lifted or missing nail checked the same day for nail bed repair.
A broken finger usually takes 6 to 12 weeks to heal, with 3 to 6 weeks of protection in buddy tape or a splint. Before any of that, make a loose fist: a finger that crosses its neighbor means the bone is rotated.
Intersection syndrome is inflamed tendons 4 to 8 cm above the wrist on the back of the forearm, often with a squeak you can feel. Most settle in 2 to 6 weeks with a splint and a change of load.
ECU tendonitis is an overloaded tendon on the little-finger side of the back of the wrist, and most settle in 6 to 12 weeks. If the wrist snaps when you turn your palm up after an injury, a cast in the first few weeks can heal it without surgery.
Kienböck’s disease is the lunate, a small central wrist bone, losing its blood supply and collapsing, usually in a 20 to 40 year old with no injury. Early X-rays are often normal; an MRI finds it, and the stage decides whether the bone can still be saved.
SLAC and SNAC wrist are arthritis that follows an old injury: a missed scapholunate tear or a scaphoid that never healed. The wear follows a predictable route, and each stage it passes closes off one of the surgical options.