Just wondering if anyone else has lost a finger. I had a trailering accident while untying my horse in the trailer( he got anxious)and I lost half of the middle finger of my left hand.Luckily, I’m right- handed. In my own trailer I use panic snaps but this was a friends’.I do endurance and CTR and was just interested in peoples recovery times, healing tips, whatever.
After reading thru this forum I realize this is really not that big of a deal after 25 years of riding my fast guys. I will be starting a permanent makeup business this summer and will probably wear a finger prosthetic in front of clients.
My hand surgeon thinks I can ride in 3 weeks if all heals well.
My husband was alittle upset with my horse but I explained to my family that my arab has no idea he did this.Thoughts?
A friend of mine lost the end of her middle finger between the 1st and 2nd knuckle from the tip. She rides and never has a problem with it. I do know that she never wears her prosthetic. She is also a recovery room nurse. But the reason she doesn’t wear it - was because when she held her coffee mug it stuck out and everyone thought she was flippin them off. 
Good luck and I hope it heals quick. By the way - where are you located. I would love to have some permanent makeup done!
I don’t post on here much but I felt compelled to respond to this one. About a year ago, I lost part of my finger when a horse pulled back, reared and caught my finger between the tie-bar and the lead rope. The surgeons couldn’t reattach it, so I’m left with just part of my right ring finger.
At the time, I honestly couldn’t believe or accept what happened. Of course, I knew it could have been worse, I knew it’s “just a finger,” and all the other things people say to make you feel better. But when it’s your finger that’s missing, it’s unbelievably upsetting and difficult to go through. Even though it does get easier, I still think about it every day, relive the moment it happened all the time, and I don’t think it’s something I will ever truly “get over.”
I had no trouble healing from the surgery. My surgeon did a good job aesthetically, since there is minimal scarring. Unfortunately, it’s generally rather uncomfortable, since the nerves are now very close to the surface. It’s gotten a bit better over time, and I’m hoping that one day it won’t be uncomfortable any more. I took a few weeks off riding, but it doesn’t really affect my riding or horse handling at all.
At the time, I thought I would get a prosthetic, but I just never have felt like the few thousand is a good use of my (limited) money. I am, however, very careful about how I use my right hand, especially in public. I hate to be superficial, but it does really affect how I act and feel about myself, especially as a twenty-something woman.
Please feel free to PM me for any more info or for moral support. I’m so sorry you are going through this.
Yes, I do spend alot of time reliving it. It just happened last Sunday so I’m just a few days out. My mother is a nurse so she has been changing the bandage for me and giving me alot of emotional support, as well as my friends.I have a tight group of horsey friends but its already getting difficult as we have a two-day ride I will miss this weekend.
I’m live near Wellington, fl so it is very horsey and , ahem, “upscale” here where most women look like well-maintained supermodels. Have you looked at Alatheia prosthetics ? I think I will get one for work and for social occasions where I just don’t feel like retelling my story. I suffered a serious life threatening illness about six years ago and successfully recovered so i feel silly making a big deal about. Of course everyone who looks at me will wonder, i’m sure.
For being just a few days out, it sounds like you have a really good attitude about it!
I just looked at the Alatheia website - they sound really good. Have you been in contact with them? I wonder if my insurance company would pay for it…then it might be worth it.
Yes, I have contacted them and they seem like they are experts in this field.Their prosthetics range from 2800-6500 depending on how custom you want it to look.I spoke to a guy names Heath Daniels who was very informative
, they are located in Mississippi.He suggested I travel there and look at the various types and they take an impression of your finger.
You are a young women(im48) with your whole life ahead of you.I dont know if you are married or have children but having my son and husband to focus on seems to be helping.My little Japanese chin dogs are giving me a lot of special cuddles.
Forgot to add that he said most insurance will pay 50%.
so sorry about the fingers ! :no: hope you both heal (in all senses of the word) quickly. (those prostheses look really nice, at least on the monitor…)
Thanks for the imput about the website. I will be ordering from this company so maybe I can post before and after pictures.By the way,I’m not a green rider,I don’t know why my name says that.I’ve been riding and competing for 25 years. Hopefully my story will make everyone a tad more cautious.My horse was just anxious to get off the trailer and be with his buddy.
it has solely to do with how many posts you’ve made to the board. i think i’m a working hunter–and would frankly rather just throw myself on the ground a few times and not even bother getting on the horse for a hunter class.
I lost my entire left ring finger and the first joint of my left middle finger in a car accident nearly 15 years ago. I also degloved about half of my left hand, broke my neck and sustained a severe concussion. I was back in the saddle and eventing at novice in 10 weeks. To date, I’ve had seven surgeries on my hand.
I’ve also had a ray resection to close the gap in my hand (they remove the carpal bone in the hand that corresponds to the missing finger.)
People rarely realize there is anything wrong with my hand, and often ONLY after they have known me for some time. I have slowly–very slowly–gotten less and less self conscious about it.
Equineophile, it sounds like you may have neuromas, which can be treated very effectively with surgery. I have had two neuroma reductions and the difference is night and day, comfort-wise. If you continue to have problems and discomfort, find a good PLASTIC surgeon–NOT a hand guy–and have him evaluate you.
I cannot offer any actual advice since my injury was different enough to not be that helpful (horse bit off everything above the knuckle of my thumb but some of it was rebuilt with surgery- my surgeon was a genious and did what the head of plastics at a major university hospital told me was not doable).
I just wanted to offer my sympathy and let you know that it has come to be a non-issue for me with a little bit of time and the only times I think about it in a negative way is when I drop something because I don’t have enough thumb above the joint to grasp that object well. I have gotten used to it and most people do not notice that my thumb is shorter and weird looking unless I point it out (its official name is “the stumpy thumb”)
I initially spent a lot of time revisiting it (a horse bit mine off and not by accident) but give that some time- it will get better. I never think about the scary/fear aspect of it any more.
equinophile- I had a ton of pain and hyper-sensitivity at first due to the fact that after the reconstruction surgery all the nerves in my thumb were way way closer to surface than they were supposed to be- my doc sent me to occupational therapy for that and I went from unbale to bear touching anything with it to have no tactile sensitivity problems at all. You might want to ask about it. I am not sure I could use my hand at all if I had not had the OT
I feel a little weird mentioning my injury, as it seems more insignificant than what some of you have posted, but here goes…I had the tip of my left thumb bitten off by a horse (not mine!!). I would say I lost about a half an inch, I was very fortunate that my nail bed was mostly unaffected, though it too is smaller than the right thumb’s. The doctor initially thought it wouldn’t come back after the surgery. My treatment consisted of the orthopedist sawing off the bone that was sticking out, and then having a skin graft (from the top of my thigh) placed over the top. The thumb was kind of split down the middle, so that had to be stitched up and then the graft stitched into place over the tip.
The post-op procedure was a cast over my hand, with the fingers exposed, with the thumb encased in the cast and it ran all the way up to my elbow for about 2 weeks. I was cautioned to be extremely careful not to bump my hand so as to not dislodge the graft. I also did suffer from phantom pain I suppose as the nerve endings died. Once the cast came off, I was to change the bandage daily. The first few days of doing that, I literally sat on my bathroom floor crying in agony as I peeled the bandage off of the exposed nerves (the majority of the graft took hold, but there were still “open” sections). I have never experienced anything like that before or since. I think I was deemed “healed” maybe two months after the orginal accident.
As for what I am left with, I have an “uneven” thumb tip which is higher on one side than the other, the skin on the very tip of it is different than the rest of the skin and it cracks open and bleeds easily. I do keep thinking that maybe I should go and see if I could get additional surgery to help correct the “imperfections”, but quite frankly, I don’t want to go through all of that again.
This accident happened when I was eighteen and I am now 36 years old. Yes, it is awkward as a young woman to have, in my case, what could be described as a disfigurement. I do remember my mom being very upset as the injury occurred to my left hand and how was I going to show off an engagement ring (WTF!?). I am still self-conscious about it after 18 years and I do try to hide it to some degree.
On the upside, pre-accident I was one of those needle-phobic, blood and gore- phobic people, and I got over that REAL fast! So much so that I have worked for a small animal vet assisting with sugeries and I am not bothered at all looking at injuries and “insides”. 
arabracer - hang in there!!! you will be amazed at how “normal” you will be able to function once you are healed. I lost to the first joint of both my middle finger and ring finger on my right hand (snowblower) 6 yrs ago. The healing process was NOT FUN and I did have to have surgery for a neuroma after about a yr, but honestly, I am able to ride just fine and got back to riding pretty quickly once I was healed. I had really great physical therapists at a clinic specializing in hand PT, that was essential to get mobility back.
please try to emphasize to your hubby not to hold it against your horse; the horse is not really at fault here. sh*t happens. Ive had a fairly serious accident (or 2) with my horse who the worlds sweetest and gentlest beastie, a bit hard for my family to believe, but neither situation was her fault.
I guess I am a bit self conscious about my fingers, but people really do bend over back-wards to not notice and not say anything. at since I was in my mid40s when this happened, I was way more concerned about if I could ride than how it would look.
please post back here, and take care…
Four years ago I lost the tip of my left ring finger in an accident similar to Equinophile’s (horse panicked and jumped backward as I was tying her, and my hand holding the lead rope was slammed against the metal pipe tie-bar). It took off about a half-inch of my finger, from the base of the fingernail to the tip. Didn’t actually hurt much then, nor since, though I have had some weird phantom feelings, such as if dirt was jammed under the non-existent nail. For a number of reasons, mainly the fact that the fingertip was in a pile of horse manure and mud for about 20 minutes until they found it, my age (60) and that the nearest hand surgeon was about 150 miles away, and the fact that if the re-attachment failed I would lose more of the finger, I decided not try to have it re-attached, and so in the emergency room of the local hospital they just cleaned it up and sewed the skin back together over the tip. It healed quickly, and the nail started growing back, but from the middle of the finger where the two edges had been sewn together. I’ve had two minor plastic surgeries since then to try to get rid of it, but it seems that even if only a few nail cells are left, it will regrow, and now have a small flat piece of nail about ¼ inch wide at the tip of the finger.
Seeing the end of my finger gone was one of the worst shocks of my life, and I also kept replaying the scene over and over in my mind, until I decided it was something best forgotten, and just tried to do something else any time that scene started up. Dealing with an amputation is hard, even when it’s “only a fingertip.” What really helped me, however, is the fact that I’m a volunteer instructor at a therapeutic riding center, and seeing what some of the people there have to deal with daily and for all their lives sort of put my injury into perspective. But really, no one ever seems to notice it unless their attention is drawn to it – I’m fairly often used as an example of “see what can happen to you if you’re not careful with ropes that have horses on the other end.” Kids usually want to see the finger up close and ask questions; adults usually just grimace a bit, though one lawyer volunteer covered his eyes and ran away moaning. Like Arabracer, my husband and children were supportive (didn’t have to do dishes or housecleaning for several weeks!), and my cats were very attentive while I was at home recovering, and would come snuggle every time I sat down.
Most of the time I myself forget about the finger, and sometimes still get a slight shock when I look at my hand and see it. The ring finger is the least important of all the fingers, so I was lucky with that. Now it’s mainly an inconvenience, even though it is my dominant hand. I did consider a prosthetic, and checked out Alatheia, but decided that $3000 was more than I wanted to spend. But at least I can get a 10% discount on a manicure.
Arabracer, if your mother is a nurse she’s probably telling you to keep your hand elevated and use ice packs. This was a big help for me, and I used to keep one of those gel packs you can heat or cool in the freezer and wrap around my finger every evening for months, since the finger would tend to swell and throb by the end of the day. Sometimes used to stick it in a glass of ice water during the day if I’d been using my hands a lot and the finger was throbbing a bit. I hope you heal well and fast, and are back riding soon.
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Thank you for the support!
I just want to let everyone know how much I appreciate their messages of support. Please keep posting in as I think we can all learn and benefit from each other.This was supposed to be a big riding weekend for me-40 miles Fri and Sun combined,so it was weird not to be riding. Yesterday I went through the mental aspect of just wishing I was waking up from a dream and my finger would be there…also feel bad about putting my family through any additional stress.
However, I’m going to focus on my physical therapy and healing.I can also work on organizing my business(permanent makeup) that I had planned to start in March.My recumbent bike has dust on it-time to change that!!
Sadly, even if insurance pays 50% of $2800, a prosthetic is probably not something I can afford right now. They look really nice though - do let us know if you get one!
You can have the prothesis provider submit a Pre-determination of benefits to you insurance company to see how much they will pay.
I have seen many plans that pay 80% after the deductible for a prothesis.
If you don’t ask you don’t know.
I injured my left hand ring finger when I was just 5 years old. Severed just below the first knuckle the tip had also been smashed, surgeons were able to “re-attach” it. Its shorter than the rest of my fingers, and has a weird big bulge over the knuckle area, the tip is disfigured. Feeling is just about normal now, for years and years it had numb areas. My recovery was fairly long, as they did reattach it, which meant I was in a cast past my elbow for quite a while to let the bone, tendons and nerves heal. When the cast came off I couldn’t move any of my fingers. Took a while for strength and mobility to come back.
I have had it this way for so long, it is part of me, and I have grown to like its uniqueness. Now and then I will run across someone else with the same “finger”. We usually share a “hey… look! Me too!”
Wanted to add… people hardly ever notice my finger.
