Boutonnière deformity is the central slip tearing off the middle knuckle. On day one the finger looks almost normal, and the deformity develops over the next one to three weeks while it’s being treated as a jam. Here’s the test that catches it before it bends.
Jersey finger is the deep flexor tendon ripping off the bone at your fingertip, usually the ring finger, usually grabbing a shirt. The finger still works, which is why people wait. Hold the middle bone and bend the tip: if nothing moves, this is surgical, in days not weeks.
Trigger finger release takes 15 minutes and the locking is gone on the table. The recovery questions start on day 3. Here’s the honest week-by-week: move early, respect the palm scar, and know the two situations where hand therapy earns its place.
Golfer’s elbow is tennis elbow’s inner-side twin: tendon overload from grip, not golf. Same rules apply: loading beats rest, months not weeks, and pain plus ring-finger tingling means the nerve next door is involved.
Tennis elbow is tendon degeneration, not inflammation, which is why rest and pills disappoint. The fix is months of graded loading. Here’s the honest 6 to 12 month timeline, and why starting early decides which version you get.
De Quervain’s tenosynovitis, the mummy wrist: thumb-side pain that flares when you lift thumbs-up. Splint early and change the lifting technique, and it’s a 4 to 6 week story. Push through it, and it ruins the first year of parenthood.
A drooping fingertip after a ball strike is a torn tendon, however little it hurts. The fix is a splint worn dead straight for 6 to 8 weeks, and one bend restarts the clock. The cheapest good outcome in hand therapy, bought entirely with discipline.
Trigger finger is a tendon catching on a thickened pulley at the base of your finger. Caught at the click stage, a splint usually settles it in 6 weeks. At the locking stage, the options narrow. Here’s the honest timeline.