Broke My Pinky!

[pbass40]

Ouch! I broke my Pinky,and have to play tonite,luckily our songs I use the Roots alot because its heavier style music,and I have started practicing doing my walks subsituting my ring finger.Have any of you ever had to play with a hand injury?

[thumpbass1]

Yes I have had to play with a hand injury and it stinks. I had a weird incident of recovering from a virulent flu a few years back that left my left hand pinky finger unable to flex and move properly. I could not fret a note with it! I had to use my ring finger and the rest of hand to compensate. As for the pinky, it took about 3 1/2 months of daily hand and finger exercises to get my left hand pinky finger back on line. A doctor thinks the flu bug did some nerve damage as strange as that sounds, but I recovered

Now I did experience the injury of getting a tendon sliced away from the top knuckle of my left hand index finger. That required surgery, six weeks in a cast, and just my thumb sticking out. I couldn't play bass or guitar, but I learned to play lap style slide guitar with a glass candle snuffer on my thumb. That was making lemonade out of out of the lemons I'd been handed. My doc also saw no harm in it. It also took a few weeks of therapy to get back to strength when the cast came off.

I do caution all musicians to not be foolish if one suffers a bad enough injury where they shouldn't be playing, to take the doc's advice. It'll do no good to be a tough gig hero who winds up never healing properly because they wouldn't let a severe injury heal with rest and proper care. I hope you recover quickly from what your pinky suffered. It stinks to play injured plain and simple. I wish you the best.

[Fergie Fulton]

LOL sure have and just hours after it happened. I crushed my forefinger just before a gig. My hand the next day was frozen due to the strain on the fingers and forearm, but rest and massage got it in shape to repeat the proccess later on that day. But rest for two weeks was taken to allow it to heal, check the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJH_zXvJU6g

[Lichtaffen]

Fergie - you're a trooper. That was a great number!

[Fergie Fulton]

Originally Posted by Lichtaffen

Fergie - you're a trooper. That was a great number!

Had no choice but to do them as i was away from home on a small tour, no gig no money LOL. But seriously the hand the next day because i re-learned my fingering not to use the forefinger was a vast strain on my hands, especialy blues spread intervals. I have the knowledge to deal with such things so i could gauge my performance and how the hand was doing.
The problem with a break is in the nature if the break and the relationship to the joint, ligament, and tendons. As the bones in the fingers are short the break will affect joint movement. The bone will thicken around the break so that needs to be addressed, as does the conection of the ligament to it. When the swelling goes down arnica tablets and arnica cream is great for this type of injury. It will help break down the swelling and thickning of tissue in to the blood stream.
here's a link to some more info

http://www.emedicinehealth.com/broke...article_em.htm

Good luck and remember time is the healer.