Had a 9” cutoff wheel grenade on me. A big chunk of wheel severed both extensor tendons and stuck in the bone. Surgery to fish out and repair tendons yesterday. Bone cleaned up.

Any guesses on realistic recoup time? Any experiences for therapy and final outcomes from something like this, strength or range of motion? Surgeon wasn’t huge help with these questions, all I got was don’t get your hopes up. Follow up in 2 weeks, with my preferred specialist.



Owl

Hands and feet heal very slowly -- my best guess (depending on your age) is that you will get some function at 3-4 weeks but don't expect to feel like it functions somewhat normally for about 8-10 weeks. fully functional may take longer than that. the younger you are the quicker you heal.

Ouch! Praying for a speedy recovery.

An older family member had his thumb and pinky tendons and nerves recently worked on. Dr said 6-8 weeks but it took over 3 months for tingling to stop. Hopefully you don't need precision handling with your thumb during recovery.
One thing his dr said is do not use a stress ball to strengthen tendons and muscles during recovery.

I tore tendons in both thumbs when I was a teenager from skiing. The first time they just put me in a cast, and it was OK but not great. When I did the other one they operated. It took a couple months to be normal, then they operated on the first one and it came out fine. Now at 62 they are both perfect and no arthritis. I know young people heal faster, but i'm guessing you'll do fine. Some physical therapy and excersizes would certainly help.

Good luck.

Pete

Hello Owl,

Sorry to hear this. We don't realize how important our thumbs are until we lose the ability to use them. I cut myself badly back in 2005 and completely severed the extensor tendon on my thumb. Went the next day for the surgeon to try to sew it back together and then stitch it up. Long story short, after two weeks of being in a splint with no movement I went back to the surgeon. He took off the splint and asked me to try and move my thumb. As hard as I tried, I could not get it to move more than about 1/16". The surgeon assured me that he believed it was a good procedure and that he felt confident about the sewing.

I still had trouble moving it the next several weeks. My mom is a big herbalist and encouraged me to put some kind of essential oil on it and rub/massage my thumb every night. Surprisingly, it did help and also seemed to warm my thumb and actually felt pretty good. The movement in my thumb improved daily and now I have full use of my thumb like nothing ever happened.

When it gets really cold, that thumb gets numb in that area, but it still functions like it was never cut. I am confident that using that essential oil at night and rubbing the area gently helped speed up my healing process. Just make sure the cut is healed up good enough that it does not hurt when gently rubbing. Good luck, and wishing you a fast and full recovery! Chancey

Thanks guys.

Sounds like time and determination is the key to good results if not full recovery.

Good times, good times.



Owl

Couple months plus therapy possibly.

Sounds painful. Hope you recover 100%.

I severed a tendon in my thumb as a teenager. They reattached it and about 4 weeks I had the half cast off. Had gone swimming and felt it snap again. Couldn't bend my thumb. The second surgery they had to shorten the tendon some to get a clean area to reattach it. Took about two months for that to heal. Had a bump on that tendon for years. Made really tough bowling, it would irritate it would get a little bigger. Now about 43 years later it the bump is smaller. I still have full use of the thumb.