First-hour steps for an amputated finger, including the two mistakes that make reattachment impossible. Plus why surgeons sometimes advise against replanting, and why many fingertip wounds heal best if left alone.
A fracture at the very base of the thumb runs into the joint and has a muscle pulling it out of place, which is why it usually needs fixing rather than casting. The goal is a smooth joint surface, not just a healed bone.
The check that matters after a broken finger isn’t on the X-ray. Make a loose fist: if a finger crosses over its neighbor, the bone is rotated, and rotation is the one deformity a finger can’t work around.
Most wrist arthritis under 60 is the ending of an old injury: a missed scapholunate tear or a scaphoid that never healed. The wear follows a predictable route, and every surgical option trades movement for pain relief.
Inner elbow pain in a thrower is a ligament problem, not a tendon one. The first sign is usually lost velocity rather than pain, and Tommy John surgery does not make anyone throw harder.
A fall onto the point of the elbow. Whether you can straighten your arm against gravity decides whether this is a splint or an operation, and the metalwork sits under skin with nothing to pad it.
A pop at the front of the elbow under load, then an arm that still bends fine, so people wait. The hook test takes seconds, and the repair window closes at around two to three weeks.
Adult forearm fractures are plated because the forearm is a rotating joint, and a bone healing slightly the wrong shape costs you rotation permanently. Plus the two single-bone fractures that hide a dislocation at the other end.
Flexor repairs fail loudly by rupturing. Extensor repairs fail quietly, as a lag: the finger bends fine and just stops straightening all the way. A few millimeters of tendon length become permanent degrees. Here’s the weekly check that catches it.
No Dupuytren’s treatment cures the disease. Needle release buys a fast recovery and a shorter reprieve; open surgery costs months and buys longer. And the joint that’s bent decides your result more than the operation does.