Possible broken bone in hand, need advice

[christian_r]

About a week ago I was cutting wood and tried to break a little branch off a piece of firewood by punching it with my big insulated work gloves, missed it with the two big strong knuckles forcing the little ring finger to take all the force. It swelled up with a pronounced bump in the location of the red circle in the picture, and my palm turned black and blue.

Of course I have no insurance, but I do have a friend that is an oral surgeon and he took a picture. His printer was running out of ink so it's not the greatest, but I couldn't argue with free. The picture kind of shows a possible break, now my questions are:

1. Is this a likely way for that bone to break for my actions? I hit it very hard, confident the branch would break -it didn't.

2. Supposing the bone is broken there, is it possible for it to heal satisfactorily without a cast? I have been very gentle with it, only putting the lightest of pressure on the other fingers.

3. How long should I baby it? When should it be ready for say, bike riding?

I know getting blood and nutrients to it is important, so I haven't lightened up on my usual schedule of running and cycling on my indoor trainer.

Thank you for your time
christian

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[christian_r]

Ok, it's been 23 days now and all was going well until two days ago when I bumped it on something and the small raised area swelled up to a noticeable bump. There wasn't a lot of pain involved but now I'm worried that the fracture (if there is one) isn't mending.

My brother broke his 5th metacarpal and tells me "if you re-break it, you will know". Is this always true? Is it always very painful or could I have re-injured it and not be able to tell? Has anyone had something like this that turned out to be just a bruised bone? I just don't know what a fracture feels like, my previous two breaks involved surgery so they hurt BAD.

c

[christian_r]

Well it's been 9 days now and the swelling is nearly all gone, there's still a small raised area at the spot where the swelling was concentrated originally. Think I will just assume it's cracked and go easy for another two weeks to be safe. Seems a better plan to be cautious than risk making it worse.

[amiey2217]

i dont really see any signs of fracture. unless really painful and swollen after a few days, continue activity as tolerated. if it hurts dont do it. it could be just badly bruised which can take a while to get completely better