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Complete rupture of A2 pulley 29-May-2011 At 8:04:27 AM paulmilliken

Message

Hi climbingjac,

I injured my A2 pulley in the left ring finger last August after cooling down and then trying a hard bolder problem without warming up again. It took 6 months until I dared to crimp carefully on it. I followed the advice of Dave MacLeod in http://onlineclimbingcoach.blogspot.com/2010/05/pulley-injuries-article.html , especially the ice-therapy to provoke the "Lewis Reaction".

Now I almost never crimp and if I do it is with my middle finger, index finger and thumb only. I recommend learning to climb with an open-handed grip. You can train this by hanging from a couple of 2 or 3-finger pockets and eventually it will become stronger than your crimp grip. You'll know you've got the grip right if you try it gently with your injured finger and feel no pain at all. If you feel any pain then stop.

I always tape my finger with the H-taping method as shown here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ThzPFaxgEE . This taping method will stop you from accidentally crimping as you will feel the tape working against the flexing of your finger provided you apply the tape with your finger straight.

On the bright side, I didn't stop climbing. However, I only climbed easy routes using only 2 fingers on my left hand for a couple of months. Then I started using my injured finger exclusively in the open-handed position. I was careful to avoid even the slightest amount of pain. Hand-jamming is also finger-friendly. Now I'm climbing stronger than I ever have *without* crimping with my ring fingers.

A couple of other things I tried were massaging the injury with castor oil and drinking warm water with half a teaspoon of gelatine dissolved in it. I'm not sure how effective these treatments were but they certainly didn't do any harm.

Good luck with the rehabilitation.

Paul