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Old 06-12-2010, 03:37 PM
mhs mhs is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Encinitas, CA
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Hi TP,

I had two on my left hand and 1 on my right. The right was done separately and was relatively quick to heal. I was playing guitar pretty well within 1 week to 3 weeks of the first one.

The 2nd time, when I had two, the surgeon and I decided to try them both at once. I'm not sure there's a "correct" answer to these things. The biggest problem with trigger finger surgery isn't the surgery (because it's easy), it's the aftermath, which consists of PT and using the PT to soften scar tissue.

Of course, if you have more fingers done, the incision is larger, so more scar tissue, so more PT, and it can eat up a fair amount of time to get back to something resembling 'normal'.

I might be the guy that was referred to as having a horrible outcome (I have no idea really), but I may have described it that way 6 months after surgery when I was still in a pretty huge amount of pain and couldn't feel my fingertips, and had a limited range of motion.

The surgery worked fine either way. My trigger fingers were healed right after surgery. That's almost the smallest part of surgery, so make sure you use a surgeon that really supports aftercare (PT/OT) and will lobby with your insurance company to get it since it winds up being the bulk of the deal especially if you're considering getting 4 fingers done.

In retrospect, I'm really happy with the outcome of my surgeries, and when you can't use those fingers at all , then surgery isn't the last resort. It's pretty much the only way forward. When you have any other option open to you, then it's the last resort but mine were bad.

I put a trigger finger section on my youtube site so someone that played guitar might get some idea what this is like for some of us. I'll link to it if I ever stop typing ;)

I can gig now, play for 5-6 hours no problems, and I'm still in PT for another 2 months. I would be really hesitant to have 4 fingers done at once based on my experience. The thing about surgeons as a generalization is that if you ask a decent surgeon about his track record with any type of surgery (in our case TF surgeries), they will say something like "I've performed 4500 of these things and the only thing anyone has ever said is thank you". The problem with that is that it's an easy surgery and of course the surgeon has never killed anyone during the surgery nor severed a tendon, but that is meaningless info.

What you'd like to know is follow-up info, like how is the 1) surgeon, 2) guitar-player, 3) sports nut, 9 months after surgery? Did they regain all their fine motor skills? Some people are pretty sedentary or didn't use many finger motor skills and they will consider their surgeries total cures whereas we might not do so unless we're playing without problems all day long--

Anyway, my best wishes to you and here's a link to where you can find a few trigger-finger related videos (day of surgery, etc).

http://www.youtube.com/user/hachamacha (see the playlists for TF)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Taylorplayer View Post
A question for those of you that have had "Trigger Finger" Surgery: Can more than one finger be "done" at one time? The index finger on my left hand is now starting to trigger... and I can feel the same sort of nodule on my palm for my other fingers as well...

I do a fair amount of bike riding (about 100 miles a week) and I wear gel padded gloves, and also have a very good set of handgrips. But, it's starting to take it's toll.

If I'm going in for surgery for the index finger, could I simply have all four fingers "done" at the same time?

Thanks in advance,
T/P
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