I've had problems with the joints my fingers and elbows for the past 2 years or so. I recently went to see an ortho surgeon who told me the following:
Fingers: Serious inflammation in the second joints down from the fingertips in my ring and middle fingers. They really hurt the next following hard sport or bouldering – especially crimps. The fingers become somewhat hard to curl. They are tender when I lightly squeeze the outside of the joints (just to test them for pain). And, my ring finger joints hurt when I extend my fingers straight out. Plus, osteoarthritis on the outside (pinky side) on both of my first joints down from the fingertips on the ring fingers. The doc told me to try NSAID's and that should cure them of the inflammation and possibly the osteoarthritis.
Elbows: This one was hard for me to nail down because my elbows don't hurt on the medial and laterals like most climbers. My pain in on the inside of both elbows next to and kind of behind my biceps. When really pissed off the pain extends to the outside of my arm, moving diagonally up (see pic). The doc had no doubts that it is Brachial Tendonitis.
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So now I have an appt to see a PT for my elbows. I will ask them about my fingers as well.
I have been taking mega doses of Ibuprofen for the past 5 days and haven't climbed for about 1 1/2 weeks. I don't like the idea of using NSAID's but am willing to try them for a short amount of time to reduce inflammation. The pain in my knuckles has pretty much gone away so something is working but, I am skeptical what will happen once I start climbing again.
Has anyone else dealt with these same problems (fingers and/or elbows)?
