The Friendly 12bar Blues Guitar Forum

Well... Playing guitar is gonna get a bit, ah..., "interesting". Today I managed to shoot a 3 1/4 inch framing nail through my right index finger. After four hours in the local emergency room, they tell me that the bone is OK, the tendon appears OK, and that the nerve is severed, but should grow back eventually. So, aside from being sore, swollen, and stiff, I can't feel the tip, where the finger meets the guitar string. I tried to play a bit tonight (thank goodness for painkillers), and it will take some adjustment. (understatement!) I will see how things work out at Monday's gig. I hope it doesn't mess us up too much, we were just starting to sound all right.

Good shot with the nail, had to hurt. I shifted 33,000lbs of concrete on Friday and am a little sore muscle wise especially in the hands and forearms so although not quite the same levels of pain, you have my sympathies. Hope your finger heals up quick, don't rush back to playing too much, don't want to cause permanent damage by over doing it.

Ouch! And a framing nail, couldn't be a finish nail, could it? That's about as bad as it could get. That must be some fine pain killers they gave you to be able to attempt playing the same day! Better take it easy on the playing for a bit, don't want to do any permanate damage to that picking finger.

Man, that sounds like it would hurt - a lot. Hope those nerves grow back quicly. Not having sensation in the fingertip seems like a real loss - for more than one reason. Hope the guitar playing works out. But like everyone else has said - don't overdo.

Thanks Guys... I promise that I will be careful tomorrow night. I won't even take any painkillers, so that I will know if I am overdoing it... Actually, I think I can shift a lot of picking duties to my middle finger. Just have to concentrate.
A few years ago, I smacked the ring fingertip of my left (fretting) hand with a framing hammer and broke the h*ll out of the bone. I couldn't touch a guitar string with that finger for five months... so I stuck a slide on that finger and learned to play bottleneck. If Django could play, this won't stop me.

OUCHIE!!! Wow, blindboy, that's horrible sounding! I know nerve damage, as my entire sciatic nerve was stretched from the bottom of my spine literally down into my big toe back in 2001 when I had a 3-level global lumbar fusion (that was a real OUCHIE!!) and the nerve DOES grow back (even though mine wasn't severed) but it heals slowly - about an inch a year, so it's a lot better for me in the higher areas, but the foot and toe area still burn and hurt at times, and sometimes I feel like I've got a rock in my shoe, when there is really not anything at all in there that shouldn't be. But again, mine was stretched, and over a really long distance, so it will be a different healing and kind of pain in your case. Probably it will hurt more at first (especially when the numbness starts to go away and is replaced with sensation...it will likely be a rather painful sensation.. BUT on the really positive side, there is only a really small length of nerve to heal, so it won't be as slow as mine (I hope!).

But you probably will need painkillers to play tomorrow, unless you can somehow make sure you NEVER forget and try and use that finger, which in such a short period of time is unlikely... and as others have said, you do not want to keep aggravating it by over-using it when it should be treated as gently as possible, Can you put something on it (even a rubber thing or something that would get in the way and would physically prevent you from forgetting and by force of habit, hitting the string with that finger? As the slide worked before for you, and you also had a real good reason to get real good at slide guitar! having something on or wrapped around that finger - even just gauze or tape or anything to prevent contact without a good amount of padding in between - would help a lot in preventing further injury and and also helping you more quickly to get in the habit of NOT using that finger to play.

I hope this helped somewhat, and was not depressing, I know you can't stop playing for any length of time, and especially so in a band that's gigging, so as with Django and Les Paul (who for years had terribly arthritic fingers on his fretting hand and only - like Django in a way - had real use of only 2 fingers on that hand to do all his fretting with (and any anti-arthritic meds would mess up his stomach and he felt he could not take any of them).

So the last years Les played and fretted with only two fingers for almost all his solo lines (which I say that way, because watching him from up close at one of his Monday night shows at the Iridium jazz club in NYC during his last few years, he did seem able to do some barring with the other fingers for chordal sections of his playing * )

I hope your gig goes great, and your finger heals quickly!

Jim (S)

* although his action was set up especially for him by his sound engineer, luthier, chauffeur, and do-everything-man to Les for over 20 years T.W. (Tom) Doyle,

[who the bass player in my band just happened to move in next door to, and we all most fortunately got to become friends with Tom, which got us extra good access to Les (not very easy, especially as Les' bad moods got worse as he got older and playing was harder for him - but he NEVER showed it on stage - but he WOULD cancel seeing fans after the show and signing their guitars on bad nights - so Tom told us when was good/bad and also got my LP Guitar and photo with Les signed by him on a "good mood" day]

which may have made playing like that possible for Les. (sorry for the inevitable digression that always come with my posts! ]

I was wondering what that terrible scream of agony I heard away in the distance was!

Nasty one Blindboy - I hope that the nerve recovers well and swiftly. Glad the tendon and bone were spared.

Good advice from Jim as to methods to prevent accidentally using the finger.

What a real pita though - you've hit this great acceleration in the quality of your playing and then this happens.

Glad to see you're looking at it all so positively. Best of luck with the recovery.

Blindboy wrote:Well... Playing guitar is gonna get a bit, ah..., "interesting". Today I managed to shoot a 3 1/4 inch framing nail through my right index finger. After four hours in the local emergency room, they tell me that the bone is OK, the tendon appears OK, and that the nerve is severed, but should grow back eventually. So, aside from being sore, swollen, and stiff, I can't feel the tip, where the finger meets the guitar string. I tried to play a bit tonight (thank goodness for painkillers), and it will take some adjustment. (understatement!) I will see how things work out at Monday's gig. I hope it doesn't mess us up too much, we were just starting to sound all right.

Whoow Blind Boy Sounds horrible. Must hurt a whole lot more then you would say i hope you will recover very soon. Its remember me to a accident at the beginning of my blues band playing. That afternoon i have to work and i cut my self whit a 1/8"chisel on my left pointing finger true and true and hit the bone. we had to gig that evening and i play bass at that time. Twist my finger in with isolating tape, take some aspirin, and play. But afther 40 years, special when it is cold its still sensitive. All ways use the ring finger to bend sins. Bettre take some rest en take time to heel
Anyway i think you gonna play whatever my advise is worth

You have had your share of pain lately, Bb. I was seriously thinking of taking the night off due to some serious pain in my fretting hand. Nothing like your pain, though. Makes me shutter to even think about it.

Anything I can do? Anything you need? If so, give me a call.

A short post.

I hope it will be recover well in a short time.

Don't push it. gif it the time to cure.

I now it's ^&*(#$% , but hey!!, you can do nothing about it right now

They should outlaw nailguns! They seem to be going after flesh and bone more often than wood!

My sympathies BB! Was really enjoying your Blues jam recordings lately!

Seems a lot of folks here have had similar war-stories. I have permanent nerve damage to two fingers and thumb of my left (fretting) hand.
As you did with your previous injury to your left hand, I have focused on learning to play slide mostly because of this. But I don't have the kind of pain you're experiencing now! We have a good organic pain remedy here in Colorado that's probably not legal in your state yet. Too bad.

I know you won't give up But it sounds like everyone here would gladly take on a little of your pain just to keep you pickin'!

oneeyedslide wrote:They should outlaw nailguns! They seem to be going after flesh and bone more often than wood!

I agree. Years ago I worked as a construction inspector. I arrived at one job site to find a young man writhing on the ground holding his stomach. He had been in the process of loading a nail gun and had inadvertently triggered it sending a nail into his stomach. I was the first one to discover the accident and an ambulance was dispatched post haste. However this was way out in the boonies, so it took awhile. In the mean time we tried to make the injured party as comfortable as possible.
I've never liked nail guns from that day forward.

What a real nasty accident blindboy-hope yourhealing powers kick in and do a good and speedy job. On the bright Sie at least at was a nailgun and not a Magnum ! Also a great opportunity to perfect hybrid picking. Heal well matey

Well, I was able to play... Only slightly clumsy. Seems to be healing well, and the doctor says that the nerve should grow back in a few months.

Blindboy wrote:Well, I was able to play... Only slightly clumsy. Seems to be healing well, and the doctor says that the nerve should grow back in a few months.

Great news - good to hear - take it easy now!

Sorry to hear about the accident .... if it was me (and it has been many times in the past!) I'd be taking the pain killers... with a few drinks it makes for an interesting night!

nxsneil wrote:Sorry to hear about the accident .... if it was me (and it has been many times in the past!) I'd be taking the pain killers... with a few drinks it makes for an interesting night!

That's what I did... and it was an interesting night.
It is good that I have been playing fingerstyle more lately, because I can't hold a pick now. I guess that I am a dedicated fingerpicker now. I can use the injured finger, it doesn't hurt (much), it's just numb. I can't feel the string, or tell how hard I am plucking. I can work around that, and I can use my middle and ring fingers more too. It will just take a bit of practice. (dirty word!)