What is a mallet finger? Well I knew nothing about it or had even heard of it until it happened to me one day.

I was in the middle of tucking in the sheets under the mattress of my bed when all of a sudden I heard a kind of 'pop' sound and a sharp feeling of pain and to my surprise the end of my middle finger on my left hand was just drooping down all limp! I just couldn't hold it straight unless I held it up with the help of my other hand!

Well as I don't like going to the doctor unless I think I have something serious or if it is hurting me a lot, and in this case the pain went away quite quickly, I decided to get onto the internet and try to find out what had happened to my finger and why it was drooping downwards.

I soon came to understand, through seeing various photos (like the one above) of injured or deformed fingers, that what I had was called a 'mallet finger', which is sometimes also known as 'baseball finger' mainly due to the fact that this sort of injury happens a lot to baseball players.

In very basic terms it happens when you tear a tendon at the end of your finger due to having over extended it too much. In medical terms it is described as "an injury of the extensor digitorum tendon of the finger at the distal interphalangeal joint (DIP) resulting from hyperflexion" . But anyway that's not going to help you very much and so I won't go into any more medical terms but just go on to let you know what you have to do and the quicker you do it the better the end results will be.

The first thing you have to do is make up a home made splint because if you go off to the pharmacy to buy one you will be wasting precious time and there is the possibility that you may damage it even more.

To do this, break a wooden clothes peg (which nearly everyone has in their home) in half, lay your finger on top of the peg and secure it in place with some sticky tape wound over and around your finger and the peg. Get a bag of frozen peas from your freezer and place it on top of the finger for five minutes at a time as this will help to bring down the swelling and the reason that you shouldn't leave the peas on for any longer periods of time is that doing this could burn your skin.

Some people hardly have any pain, as was the case with me, and so you could be tempted to just ignore the problem and hope that it will get better on its own but I am afraid that this is hardly ever the case. If you have torn the tendon in the finger it is the same as when you tear a ligament or tendon in your ankle, it has to be kept immobile while the ligament or tendon heals itself, and in the case of a mallet finger the splint has to be continuously on for 8 weeks (some people say 6, but 8 is better to be on the safe side).

If you were to leave it you would end up with a deformed finger that although you could use probably wouldn't function as well as the other fingers of your hand.

Take a paracetemol or whatever pill you usually use for trying to get rid of pain and now you can go off to the pharmacy to buy a proper splint and some bandaging.

If you are lucky and they have them in stock, ask for the splint called 'Oval 8 mallet finger splint' because it really is the most comfortable to wear, it's plastic so doesn't need to be protected when washing or bathing and you can virtually keep it on permanently and not worry about changing bandages or sticky tape all the time. You will need to buy 2 different sizes, one that fits while your finger is still swollen and a second smaller one for when the swelling starts to go down. (see above photo).

In the event that you have to resort to wearing the more common splint for injured fingers which is a foam lined aluminium strip that you attach in more or less the same way as the clothes peg, you will find that every now and then you will have to change the tape or bandage that you wind round, so be very very careful that you don't move your finger while you are doing this. If you move the finger even slightly any healing that could have begun to take place is instantly ruined and you have to start your 8 weeks of splinting all over again! Big bore I know but that's how it is.

The best way of changing bandages is to do it on a flat table. First prepare yourself another splint while still having your old one on. Affix the appropriate lengths of sticky tape to one side of the splint (you usually need two bits of sticky tape). Now place your mallet finger flat on the table while you cut away the old sticky bits of tape, bring the new splint near to your finger and either slide it out of the old splint into the new one or very carefully with your other hand hold the tip of the mallet finger straight and place it gently into the new splint and now just finish off by securing the tapes over and under the other side of the splint.

You can also wear your splint dorsally if you want as shown by a photo above, in fact I used to chop and change in order to avoid any pressure sores from occurring, but basically any splint will work that keeps your finger straight and doesn't let it move.

A mallet finger HARDLY ever needs operating on unless a big chunk of bone broke away when the tendon tore.

And now I just have to say as my conscience wouldn't stop bugging me if I didn't that really when this sort of thing happens you SHOULD go and see your doctor or go to the out patients department of your nearest hospital. And so this article is really aimed at the stubborn people like me who don't like going to doctors unless it is strictly necessary and as I myself in this case didn't have any bruising (a sign that the injury might be a bit more serious) or was in that much pain I opted for looking up my cure on web pages such as http://www.mayoclinic.com

Update

I have now arrived at week number 8 when I finally decided to take off the splint. I have to admit that I was a bit nervous because had all this been worth it or not? Would my finger droop or not? It was all a bit of a nerve wracking moment.

Anyway I removed the splint from my mallet finger while I held my good hand underneath it just in case it was about to droop again and then lowered my good hand just a fraction to find with great joy that the end of my mallet finger stayed exactly where it was. It was cured and I was delighted as it had all indeed been worth it. All that care that I had taken in not letting it droop for one single second during the 8 weeks had reaped its rewards.

I have to say that it is not quite as straight as the corresponding finger of my good hand in that it has a slight droop downwards and that it is still a little swollen and I also have this hard bump on the top of the knuckle but I am confident that all of this will subside with time.

I have decided to give it some support a little while longer by winding a band aid round the knuckle (very loosely) for a couple of weeks more. This will allow the end of my mallet finger to start learning how to bend itself again but because of the band aid it wont be able to bend completely, so in other words I am allowing it some movement again but not all of it yet.

Once another two weeks are up I will then take the band aid off as well and my finger I hope will at last be ready to cope with all the movements that it used to cope with before the injury.

In two weeks time I will take a photo of my finger IF it has recovered like I hope it will have and I will place the photo here so that you can see for yourselves that all that I have mentioned above is indeed the correct way to go about treating a mallet finger!

Another update after 3 weeks of not having the splint

It has now been nearly 3 weeks since I took off the splint and I am afraid to say that I haven't seen much improvement.  I still have this huge bump on top of the knuckle and the tip of my finger is still (if only slightly) drooping.  So although there has been a huge improvement since I first did this injury to myself, in my strive for perfection I have decided, boring as it may sound, to put my finger back into a splint for another three weeks. 

I was hoping that I would have arrived at a complete cure for this condition but it seems that it is all a bit more complicated than I thought it was.  My finger functions perfectly and so I don't have any worries about that but it just doesn't look as nice as the other fingers, and so if by wearing a splint for another three weeks I could get it to improve it will all have been worth it.  After all, after having worn it for nearly eight weeks you get used to the splint and it really isn't so bad to wear it.  Any problems that you may have with the skin on your finger clear ùp very soon and so now that I know that I am not afraid to put the splint back on again for another few weeks.

I will return to give you all an update in four weeks time!!!  I am damn sure that I am going to fix this finger once and for all!!!

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