Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Anyone ever had tendon reattached in finger?????

No pics in this thread but the text descriptions are sweetly gross. Let's see if anyone can add to our queasiness.

I slipped while gutting a deer 2 years ago and severed the tendon of my left middle finger right at the top. Scary thing to look at a finger hanging down and be unable to move it.

Finished gutting the deer, wrapped the hand and drove back to town, about 50 miles, and went to the emergency room. They spent several hours cleaning the cut, I thought the abdominal cavity of an animal was sterile? Then they just sewed it up and splinted it.

After about a week I went to see a hand surgeon. They numbed my whole arm up and he repaired it. And put my arm from the elbow down in a cast. They also gave me a happy drug so I didn't even feel it till I was 40 miles out of town an my way back home.

It took about 6 weeks of physical therapy to get the motion back in it, but I'm typing with it now and the only permanent damage is that I lack about 1/4" of motion in the finger. I don't even notice that now.

Other than feeling stupid for cutting myself, no harm no foul. I've field dressed deer, elk, antelope and other critters for 50 years and that was the first time I've cut myself.

Sorry to hear about your injury but you need to be more careful dude. 50 years in the business and blah blah but you know the risks.

Yup.. Cut the tendon next to the knuckle on the middle finger on my right hand a couple years ago. Get the surgery done ASAP, or it'll take a lot more time to heal along with the therapy.. I waited 2-3 weeks, not knowing exactly what I had done until realizing that I was not going to be able to lift the finger with the other three..

I was out of commission for about two months - and I can still, to this day, feel some tightness in that tendon.. But at least it works ok..

How did you take a spill?

"Luckily" my finger cuts were when I was younger, from 6 through my20's and they were healed by splinting.
Now? they don't straighten and the cold kills me.
The worst tendon injury was my right knee in the late '90's

That one took a year of PT just to keep me walking.

I've had two severed finger tendons reattached (one thumb extensor and one pinky extensor)

takes about 5-6 weeks in a finger splint, then another month or so to get full range of motion back.

I can still feel the suture knots under the skin 5 years later.

the "grossest" part was watching him fish around for the proximal end of the pinky tendon, which had retracted an inch or so up into the back of my hand....

I used to be a gym rat and a couple years after I hung it up, I tore my biceps tendon while lifting a cooler out of a truckbed. Ripped it off at the elbow and it sounded like a zipper. My bicep contracted up by my shoulder and over the next couple of days, I had all kinds of splatter marks under the skin, from elbow to wrist.

Doc opened it up on the front and back side of the elbow. They drilled holes through the bones in my forearm. The tendons where then stretched through the holes and fastened on the backside. My bicep still rides higher on that side and no longer has a natural range of motion, but it gets me by. Luckily I'm an office worker.

it takes a while - 6-8 weeks in a tension free splint and another couple weeks to get the range of motion back.

I severed a tendon at my pinky knuckle (one of a pair operating extension of the digit so I had the other for "support"). The worst part of it was having the hand surgeon fish the end out of the back of my hand as it had retracted up some ways

I also partially severed a tendon on the back of my thumb but that was only a stitch and no splint.
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And he used to be called "Utah Righty!"

Dan

I've had it done to four fingers, can't tell you anything about the procedure cause I was out like a light..Don't have full motion of them though. Each pinkie sticks straight out with no bend to them at all.

I'm not a doctor, but I play on on the Internet. In response to the OP, a lot depends on which tendon in which finger needs repaired and what you do with that finger. Almost always, a repaired tendon will be shorter than it was.

My cousin's kid (a violin player) recently severed a tendon in the ring finger of his right hand. It should heal nicely, and give his finger a permanent curve. He'll still be able to play the violin, but it would have been worse if it had been any other finger on either hand.

Steve