Coping with my hand injury and playing with only 3 fingers

[Eugene Cole]

A week ago I injured my right index finger at the base of the nail. The set-screw on my saber saw blade impacted the fingertip at the base of the nail several times between the screw and the body of the saw.

Anyhow I can for the moment only use 3 of my 4 fingers to pick with. Just thinking about putting a fingerpick on the injured fingertip makes me cringe. It will heal in time so I count my blessings and thank the Goddess that it was not a more severe or permanent injury.

I am sure that I am not the only person here to have a similar injury. I am wondering if any of you have any suggestions or tips for the recovery process. How hard was for you to adjust to playing with only 3 fingers?

My muscle-memory (such as it is) is just really confused when I sit down at my Steel. I am begiining to think that my finger will be adequately healed long before I get to a point where I can play OK (to my ears) with only 3 fingers.

[John Gilman]

Hand injuries suck.....

Many years ago I almost removed my right middle finger in an accident. Although it's basically fine for most things, it doesn't bend far enough to finger pick. Picking with T,I,4 works just fine with some adjustment. I used to finger pick guitar with a flatpick and M and 4 (lots of people do) and that works just fine as well. Put your picks on T,M,4 and rock on. Shouldn't feel all that strange after a short adjustment.

Heal fast


--
John Gilman

[Ransom Beers]

I had my right hand fingers caught in a surface grinder several yrs. ago,one of the reasons I can't play fast,same with 6 string too,so I have to be happy playing slow songs.But at least I can still play ,just not as fast as I used to.Good luck in the healing process,it will be somewhat tender for awhile but it will come back.

[Bud Angelotti]

Once the actual wound has healed over, use arnica from the health food store. It'll help any muscles in your fingers heal up that may have been beat-up or bruised. I used to do roofing and at the end of the day, my left hand looked like fred flinstone's hand after shaking hands with bam-bam. I would clean it up, slather on Arnica, good as new !

[Eugene Cole]

Hand injuries suck.....

Many years ago I almost removed my right middle finger in an accident. Although it's basically fine for most things, it doesn't bend far enough to finger pick.
Picking with T,I,4 works just fine with some adjustment. I used to finger pick guitar with a flatpick and M and 4 (lots of people do) and that works just fine as well. Put your picks on T,M,4 and rock on. Shouldn't feel all that strange after a short adjustment.

Heal fast


--
John Gilman

John: I think you meant "T,M,R,4" instead of "T,M,4"; the latter would bring me down to 2 fingers (which would be even more constraining).
<hr>

Thanks to all of you for the kinds words; they are reassuring.

I am still not ready to try using a flatpick again; that will probably have to wait another week or 2. I only use 3 finger to fingerpick guitar and adjusting to using M,R,P instead of I,M,R on 6-string came much easier to me than being limited to only 3 fingers on my U14.

One of my snarky "Friends" suggested that I should take up Scruggs style banjo because I only need 2 working fingers for that. I had a good laugh. Sometimes an old friend with a sharp wit is just the thing to put things in perspective.

I have been waiting to see if the crushed nail would come off. I am now on day 8 since the injury and it looks like the nail is staying attached so I do have some good news.

[John Gilman]

John: I think you meant "T,M,R,4" instead of "T,M,4"; the latter would bring me down to 2 fingers (which would be even more constraining).

<snip>

Just a notational anomaly Eugene. I was using "4" for the ring finger. Sorry for the confusion.

[Donny Hinson]

You might try using these, since they do not touch the fingernail:

[Eugene Cole]

I finally worked up the courage to try flat picking guitar today. The results were less than ideal. The flat pick rests on the tingling side of the injured finger. However there was still pain in the surrounding areas. So the neuro-feedback that I am accustomed to is just not there again.

So it was. I still could finger pick (guitar) so the recovery is progressing.

[Lynn Fargo]

God's speed on your recovery!

[Jim Robbins]

Eugene, I can sympathize -- I had a bad injury to my right index finger about 15 years ago. I'm not sure which was worse -- the pain or the worry about not being able to play again. I was playing mostly 6 string and flat picking at the time and it totally messed up my flat picking. So I wound up working a lot on playing slide, picking with my thumb and using my middle and ring fingers.

Here's the silver lining -- those fingers got stronger than they would have had I not injured the index finger. The index finger eventually recovered more or less and the flat picking came back -- my main problem now is that the nail grows kind of sideways which is pretty minor in the general scheme of things. I don't have complete feeling in the tip but I can still flat pick pretty well and I can play with the index finger itself, with or without a fingerpick. My theory is that the many nerves in the finger that cause all the pain also enable reshunting of signal around a severed nerve -- so you get some of it back.

So keep playing -- if Django, Jerry and that guy that Prokofiev wrote "Concerto for left hand" can do it, so can you.

[Bobby D. Jones]

Gods speed on your recovery. I had blood poison in my right index finger tip in 2010. To keep the pressure off my finger tip I silver soldered 2 picks together. The first one was to pick with, by bending the tip straight on the 2nd pick, cutting, fitting and silver soldering it to the the 1st pick, it comes up above the fingernail to hold the pick solid on my finger. I opened the 1st pick up and padded it inside with buckskin. I used it for a month or so till my finger got back to normal. Good Luck

[Eugene Cole]

I have been using cyanoacrilate to stabilize the cracks in the nail and so far it is working very well.

I was able to fingerpick some guitar for a few minutes the other day before the pain got going. I still have numbness along the thumb side of the fingertip. But the numbness does not preclude pain elsewhere in the finger.

I am far from being able to wear fingerpicks. But this is not a big deal because I rarely used them for Steel and 6-string. The Picks were pretty much only used for playing resophonic and not much for Reso either.

Anyhow I am recovering slowly. Thanks for all the support and the kind words.

[David Mason]

Time and practice. By now, I assume you know that the secret is, there is no secret? Both my hands fade in and out, carpal tunnel, disc pinches, I'm on my way to the first of what may be many trigger finger operations today. My dad had to have all his trumpet fingers done eventually, and genetics... works, that way.

If flatpicking doesn't work, there are several different ways to use a thumbpick for alternate picking. Propiks and Fred Kelly and Herco all have flatpick/thumbpick products, but two minutes with a mill bastard file can discipline a plain old Dunlop into adequate shape. Occasionally I get gacked enough that instruments just hurt, and I've found a bunch of things to do related to straightening out songbooks, reading and writing exercises, just to keep my brain reminding my self that I am a musician. If they even need volunteers for a full body transplant...

[Eugene Cole]

I have started to practice again and I am making some progress.

The pain I had in my fingertip when I picked with it has pretty much waned but I am still having numbness in the damaged fingertip. So the nuero-feedback I have relied upon for fingerpicking all these years is an issue and I am needing to adjust and re-learn things.

I decided to try a slightly smaller Steel Amp for a while so I went and picked up a Session 500 this morning.

I used to use a Session 500 but it started sounding poorly this past summer and I never figured out where/how how to find someone with the skills to get it sounding good again.

Thanks again for all the support and kind words.

[Donny Hinson]

Take a 2-week break. You deserve it!

[Eugene Cole]

Well the process of recovery has been ongoing for about a year now.

I started doing picking exercises a couple weeks ago and I keep losing the callous on my pinky which makes playing painful.


I may have to go back to using picks for a while.

This said: I am grateful to be makng progress. It is a triumph to only have this complaint after all of this time.

[Joe Smith]

Well I can only use my thumb and my middle finger. I was in a very bad accident and messed up my picking hand. But guess what, I still play gigs. I have learned how to work around my handicap. So it can be done.

[Dave Biller]

I'm in the same boat as you, Joe. A weird nerve disorder caused me to lose about 95% usage of my middle finger. Ring and pinky don't work either. I didn't injure it or do anything to it. One day it just went away and never came back. Like you, though, I found ways to play around it and went back to working gigs full time. My thumb sure got a lot quicker!

[Eugene Cole]

Thanks for the perspective Joe and Dave. About 30 years ago I loaned a Dobro to a guitar-player friend that had crushed her left hand in a roll-over accident.

The memory of her recovery process came back in a flash to me when I crushed my fingertip a year ago.

My friend ultimately learned to play guitar left-handed and now only flat-picks instead of finger-picking.

I am grateful for what I can still do but I do feel the frustration of someone that was once more capable.