Hi folks
-I'm Bob Schrupp physical therapist, -Brad Heineck physical therapist
Together we are the most famous physical therapists on the internet
In our opinion of course, Bob
Three simple steps oh I only got two fingers one finger three simple steps to heal a sprained finger, there ya go
Yeah, yeah, so it's a step by step procedure
It works very well every time and Brad have you had these? I've had many of these, oh yeah
Yeah more so when I was younger. Doing a little more ball playing activities. I got it with basketball all the time
By the way I had a friend well
We'll talk about that later because actually fits in with whether or not you should get an x-ray, I know
But I want to hear about your friend
Well he actually
He sprained his finger or hurt or jammed it and
He was going into the service so he didn't want to go in
For x-rays in case it was broke and they found out later that yeah, it was splintered
That will segue into our thing, but by the way if you are new to our channel, please take a second to subscribe to us
We provide videos on how to stay healthy fit pain free and we upload every day
Also go over to Facebook and like us because Brad all this week
We're begging people to please like us. We have a
An array of things you can probably just pick up at home around in your house
And they're all very useful for treating a sprained finger gotcha first of all
Sprained fingers are no fun, initially they are very painful almost always and then you wonder is it broke or not
Oftentimes, then we get a lot of questions on that on the comment section
And you know I don't if this is good news or bad news
But if it's broke the treatment is oftentimes the same as if it's not, initial treatment. Yeah initial treatment, right
So but obviously I mean number one if you look at it and it's angulated
I mean, it's crooked. You know I mean, then you should go in, crooked in the way it's not supposed to be, obviously not this crooked
Like bent off to the one side
Obviously then it may be either
Dislocated or maybe right fractured and I actually had a kid who was playing basketball. I was coaching
He actually dislocated his finger, and his dad just went and pulled it and it straightened out again sure well. That's an option
I guess we're not gonna recommend that. Let a doctor do that. The other thing is if there's a lot of bruising
Sometimes that's more indication that something was torn or broken
Either way number one the first step is always the same and that's
Right try to get the swelling down, so I'll go through the three steps
And then we're gonna go through the options of how to go through each step, first up is price or in other words rest it
Ice it elevate it get the swelling down
So the big thing is
Get a cold pack on it. It's nice to have a gel cold pack that you can kind of wrap around it. Yep
I suppose a bag of peas would work
Yeah, you could use that
But I think the best thing and this is what I've used
And had patients use is get a bowl put some ice cubes in it put some water in it
And then just stick your hand in it, and it completely is wrapped by cold, pull up an ice cube, so we can prove that there's actually ice in there
You want to eat one? Well no, but they can't see from there. I know but if I tip it and I know
Exactly, anyways it definitely works well. You know 15 to 20 minutes in there is really gonna cool it down and then
You have my towel Bob? Yeah, and then and you could actually just stick one finger if you want to
Because it would get pretty cold on the whole hand I'm gonna get that out of the way just so we don't have an accident
by the way when I was in school in therapy school we had to dip our whole ankle in a
Cold bath. Oh sure, ice bath. Yep for a sprained ankle. I had one friend that actually passed out
Oh really, yeah, because he couldn't tolerate it and for me it went numb so fast. It didn't bother me at all
I'm just like what's wrong with you all
So it's interesting, that is an advantage, it cools down quicker. You know 15 to 20 minutes is more than long enough
That's gonna cool down, help the swelling, and then you want to splint it right step two is
Protect it. There is three different ways
We're going to show to protect them the first and easiest way is the buddy splint where Bob has it shown right here
You simply got you know a good finger here
You could buddy splint it to either figure on either side of it
I get a little more worried when you start using that middle finger Brad
So you know it depends which finger's actually sprained is going to determine
But the healthy one right next to it and you can use any kind of tape
But we use blue tape just so you can see it today,
So some strong tape and you could put more tape on than this, but you're gonna
Hold them together, and if it's not a real bad sprain that may suffice
And you may get through the whole injury just by buddy tape and use a cold pack if it's real severe then you're gonna
Buddy tape and then elevate it, too
So you don't want to sit in a chair with it down low you want to be some pillows underneath
Sure, watching TV. Elevated above your heart, so that helps that swelling you know get out of the finger
It's way down
By the way you can do this on a big toe too
It's actually the same almost, right I mean the title of it's finger
I know we should maybe put three simple steps to heal sprained finger or toe
Look at all the other viewers we'll bring in Brad exactly well more benefit, okay
Let's look at the next step is you can just take a popsicle stick. This is a tongue depressor
If someone's you know works in the hospital at your house. You can get a tongue depressor
Popsicle sticks works just as good and we actually broke this one so it wouldn't be as long
Yeah, cuz otherwise it goes down into the palm of your hand
I mean you could do that if you wanted, but it works better
If you just simply break the stick and see I'm limited now if you wanted to protect it more
You could put a stick on both sides
Tape this one down, and then I'd put that one and then tape that one down over the top
And then you got some more protection on it
You know if you're going to school and you're bumping it around a little bit that can help protect
Particularly the tip of the finger you can go over the top of the tip because if you got a swollen finger and you bang
That tip of the finger on you know through a door jam or something
It's not very fun. So that would be complete protection
Very cheap nice ways to work it and the other way now this isn't so cheap
If you happen to have, this came out of a wrist splint
But you can get finger splints at the not the hardware store, the pharmacy
And the thing is they're soft metal they're made out of soft metal that you can bend
Because sometimes it's hard to get the fingers straight to splint and you want a slight bend in it cuz it's more comfortable and
So like here. I'm gonna bend this
So we have a slight bend, and it's comfortable that way
Eventually you're gonna want to straighten it out
You know to get the fingers straight, but one way or another you're protecting it
And I'm not gonna take the time on a video to tape it, but it would be the same taping as that
Yeah, I don't think a lot of people realize on the wrist splints and stuff like that
They do have this moldable metal, that's hard to say moldable metal
Yeah, and it's soft and you can conform, and yeah, and that's why wrist splints
You can make it to the point where they fit you better there with the
Right material for it alright so after this period of time if it's still really bad
And it's still not bending and still
Maybe you should go in for x-rays at that point if it's not getting better at all, you're talking after you know probably
Three to six days if it
Continues the, you should be able to take the splint off and start to move it a little bit more and it should
Be moving more and the swelling's down and as the swelling goes on moves more, and then if that's going well
Then you can actually kind of help it out with your other hand you're gonna
Try and bend a little bit more at each joint
At each joint move it down the line right and down and once you can start moving it
And we call this active assistive range of motion or passive range it's kind of in between there and once you could start to do
This without help, then it's time to start strengthening, so we're on our third step well one thing
I was just gonna bring up Brad, you know if you're still concerned about being broke. I hate to keep bringing it back to that
A lot of times the pain will not be in the joint it might be in the shaft or in the actual
Bone itself, if you squeeze on here like this or this or here and here and it hurts there. Yep
I'm gonna go in at that point. There's that one spot
It's very specific very specific, but it's not on the joint, so that's another good sign
Yep, so on the other hand if it's not and probably most of the time it won't be fractured. It's usually
It's usually not and you can start to do this
And then you want to get it stronger, so you can start getting back into the game
Or you know whatever activity you're looking at, this should be pain-free
Once you can get pretty full range of motion, and it's not hurting yeah
Then you can go into something like this, and you could just take a balloon or a ball that has some, it's soft
We want something that doesn't have a lot of resistance so you can start to give it some resistance and
Squeeze there, you can just do one finger the finger
That's sprained, or you can help it out and do the whole fist together, and then work it to the one finger and
Once that gets too easy you're gonna do this you know for 10 to 20 reps if
That gets too easy, and you're squeezing in it pretty deep then you might go to a ball like this
This is one of those squish balls that has the goo inside
And you're gonna go to a little more resistive ball
and you might even get a
Bigger diameter ball nerf balls work really well this one's pretty stiff so this one
You're gonna use when it's pretty strong already
I mean coming down to the end of the rehab the strengthening aspect of this whole rehab and
Once you're at that point you get back in the game and you can do general mobility exercises
Too like you can take it and touch your thumb to each finger
That's a nice one to do, and then the tabletop up to the claw the tabletop up to the claw
This is some real therapeutic type programs
So those are just some good ones to do work with too, so you go one two three
You know within a week or two hopefully you're back in the game shooting hoops. There we go. Thanks for watching