It’s 4 months now since I chopped off the ends of two of my fingers with a hedgecutter. The hedges are coming down in my garden and I am replacing with fencing! :), I still have a recurring nightmare where I look down and see the end of my finger hanging off, and have a strong aversion to hedgecutters now! Lots of people have been asking for an update on how my fingers are doing, so here it is. See below for a current picture and what it was like before.
The less badly hurt finger is almost normal now, with just a little bit of scar tissue and a lump on the end, and a tiny bit of numbness. The worst finger which had virtually no nail left and an inch missing from the end also looks pretty amazing considering! It does still hurt quite a bit, and its shorter than it was before, and straight across rather than having a nice rounded tip, but its “really quite impressive” as the hand surgeon said. Even more impressive he said is that my fingerprint is also coming back, which doesn’t often happen. He informed me I should not commit any murders as “you won’t get away with it now!” Not that I was planning to do any! It is still painful and numb on the end, with a raised lump of scar tissue and swollen nerve tissue on the side of my finger. Sometimes I forget that if I even slightly touch it it really hurts, and last week I ended up jumping around in the supermarket when i accidently used that finger to select the banana picture on the weighing scale in the supermarket! Resulting in a bit of jumping around and some funny looks! If I compare it to the same finger on the other hand it is shorter than that one, but still no one would notice unless they looked closely, and the nail has completely grown back so looking at the finger from that side you wouldn’t really know. I still type with that finger stuck up in the air at the moment! I have to gently tap the end of the finger daily and massage it to help desensitize it. Apparently nerve damage can take up to a year to get better.
So I can only emphasise again the benefits of moist wound healing and hydrocolloid dressings for a pretty quick recovery. Whilst a bit expensive, it was worth it as the nail grew back 40% quicker giving protection to the injured finger underneath.
I count myself very lucky to have had such a good hand surgeon, and lucky that I didn’t need a skin graft as was first thought. Having done several food and nutrition courses in the past alongside my reflexology training, I am sure that eating a really good diet with lots of protein, vitamin e, and healthy fats also helped the skin to regrow. As soon as the skin had grown over the wound, I searched on the internet about healing of scars. I found that many extolled the virtues of rosehip oil. Even scars that were over 20 years old showed marked improvement after using Rosehip oil. Rosehip oil was found to regenerate the skin, and reduce scars. I found that Neals Yard, Wild Rose organic Beauty Balm, described as a one pot multi use wonder balm, really helped to keep it moisturised and helped the healing process, and I am sure has helped with skin formation as it is high in vitamins and fatty acids. I have been massaging my finger as instructed daily with the balm. So I am now definitely encouraging others to buy it to help with wound healing as well. https://uk.nyrorganic.com/shop/deborahallan In addition I took Gingko which helps to give good circulation to the extremeties. I hope all this info helps someone else who injures themselves, or had some old scars.
I would also like to say thanks to all my friends who have been amazing helping me when I couldn’t do anything, and for everyone that has asked how I am doing. Thanks to all of you 🙂
Amputation of fingertips 