Thanks Noah, I'm sure you nailed it. It's the middle joint, BTW. It does feel tight but I do have a full range of motion. It just seems to be stalled at this phase.
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Originally Posted by Noah930
Hard to tell what you've got without pics or an exam, but it sounds like you may have sprained a joint. BTW, which joint is it? The one by the fingernail? The one where your finger joins the hand? Or the one in between those two?
Finger joint sprains are notoriously slow to heal in adulthood. As in, it may ache and feel tight for a year after the injury. A joint sprain is a partial tearing of the ligaments holding that joint together. The torn portions heal by scarring back together, which is good and bad. It's good because that's how it heals. It's bad because the body lays down more scar tissue than is needed, thereby contributing to the stiffness/tightness you feel. That's also why the joint still looks swollen, months later--because of the peri articular fibrosis. The scar tissue (peri articular fibrosis) will remodel with time (takes a full year) and the swelling will improve, but that joint may always be a bit bigger than it was before. If you wore a ring on that finger, for example, you might always be half a ring size bigger.
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