saw injuries

[american spirit]

i diced up my finger a couple weeks ago with a circular saw. had surgery to repair a nerve. i work with people who have traumatic hand injuries.

after being immobilized for 10 days, my finger is stiff and very painful to move. i have more appreciation for what my patients are going through. these saw injuries are pretty common for carpenters or wannabe's like myself.

i was just wondering if anyone has any stories, good or bad, about how long it took them to recover 100% can get back to work without restrictions.

[UserRemoved1]

frig me I just typed the sequel to the Godfather and lost it all

[Back Beach]

Not from a saw, but a tow rope took the top 1" off my right thumb while water skiing off Race Pt. in 1988.

Surprisingly there was little/no blood, but just the bone, tendons, and nail base were all that was left. Didn't feel much pain, but was a little shocked when I wiped out, righted myself,reached for the tow line and noticed the damage.

It took three weeks immobilized in CC Hospital to establish the skin graft and three cosmetic surgeries to dress it up a little. The only reason we saved the thumb as opposed to amputating it was because the thumb is obviously critical for helping grip things such a baseballs and revolving spool fishing reels.

As for work, I just taped it up and began fishing/working again in about 4-5 weeks but it was sore for a long time and I couldn't put much pressure on it. It did take the better part of two years to redevelop feeling in it. I had to have the nail base removed so theres no nail, but its fully functional now.

[UserRemoved1]

shocker I had a tumor taken out of my right index finger about 3 yrs ago. Involved removing a little over 1" of radial nerve and re-attachment. This was the worst case scenario of the surgery. First thing I do literally every day when i wake up is to close my hand and that determines what I do for the day...sucks but I deal with it. I can't distend my hand any more to pick things up, nor can I shake hands normally anymore. It's the one guy who gives me a bear handshake that put me on the floor in pain. I've learned to deal around it. I'm stuck with it at this point.

My advise...get to PT ASAP. Hot paraffin dips on EVERY session...deep tissue massage every time. And have them put the sillyplastic on there too to help the scar go down....I've got bad scar tissue that can't be repaired without causing more damage now. The plastic bandage helps ALOT. I don't remember what they call it but you wear the same thing every day and wash it off once a day.

The pt is a necessity...I did over 20 weeks of pt twice and three times a week. It sucked but it did help in the long run make a very bad situation a bit better. My hands are my life but at least I got something at this point. Push for the PT and be agressive!

[american spirit]

salty,
I'm an occupational therapist and everything you were talking about, so we'll see how good i really am at this. thanks for sharing.

[UserRemoved1]

ahhh! I didnt know that! BEST that my hand EVER felt was directly following a parrafin dip and deep tissue massage. It was limber and I felt like I could do anything. Then the next day it would be nasty again.

The other thing we did was electropheresis for about a month too. not sure if I spelled that right? Might not even be the name for it either. They tape an electrode to your arm and then wrap your hand up with another electrode. This thing runs on a 9v battery but WOW. First time she did that I got about 7 seconds on low and I was done with it. Felt like she was jabbing my entire arm with a hot needle. HOLY CRAP did that hurt. Two days later I got it for a few minutes before I couldn't take it any more. By the next week I was able to take it at full strength for whatever she could throw at me. Actually would leave burn marks on the electrode points! Hurt like a bastid but I think it helped to break down some of the hard tissue. Still got several hard lumps today. Been back to the doc 4 times for followups and he still thinks it will continue to go away some more but says best prognosis is about 93%. Good nuff for me. Like I said I deal with it the best I can.

[UserRemoved1]

Shocker an interesting thing too is that she always did her assessments after the paraffin/massage. Course it was always better than when I walked in there.

Will never forget as long as I live the first day I walked in there and she set me up with the bowl/1" skeleton key pins thing. I said NOOOOOOO problem this'll be easy. She told me to go and started timing me. It took me over 30 seconds to pickup the first pin out of the bowl. I swear to this day you could have seen the look on my face change instantaneously when I realized how bad it really was. She stopped timing after the second one. I finished the thing in about 8 or 10 minutes. I was determined to do it!

[Slipknot]

Yikes! good luck with your recovery Shocker. Better luck next time and be more careful.

Circular saws? Oh ya, I had an incident back when I framed houses 1983 I think. They are very dangerous tools, especially when the guard spring is too weak or gets clogged and doesn't retrieve My boss knew the Milwaukee saw we used had a bad habit of doing that and some close calls like spinning around on a deck, even a finished fir deck did not stop him from still having us use it.
I was reaching out cutting a hip rafter on a compound angle from a squatted position on a staging, went to stand up and felt my balance going backwards so instictively went to put my hands on my knees except the saw with it's open blade was in my right hand
Thankfully it was on a 45 degree angle or it would have cut clear into my knee instead of just cutting thru my quadricep, missed the bone by an 1/8" that was close. Had to hobble down a ladder with help of the foreman, I wanted to toss that saw in the ocean that was 200 yards away
Got to Jordan Hosp. they took care of it and had to stay overnight and had to be in a cast for quite a while, did therapy, went back to framing 4 months later. I don't have 100 % of my quad but it's good enough.