finger injury question

It's been about 6 or 8 weeks since suffering the following injury and I still don't feel comfortable climbing on it so I'm looking for some feedback on anyone with familiarity with the following:

Bouldering in the gym, nothing too hard or crimpy but I felt the middle knuckle of my middle finger separate slightly when pulling straight down on a medium sized hold. That knuckle had been sore after bouldering for several weeks before but the pain was never significant and always went away after a couple of days. At 50, it's easy to attribute stuff to age.

It wasn't particularly painful at the time of injury but I stopped climbing nevertheless. Days later, it was slightly uncomfortable to hang from a pullup bar or give a firm handshake. There's a tiny bit of pain when I press at the base of my middle finger, where you'd normally have an A2 injury, though most of the weakness feels centered around the joint itself.

I was thinking about heading back to the gym and getting some mileage in on real easy stuff but then, yesterday, I crimped on some mortarwork and I could still feel pain in the joint when weighting it. Again, not really stopping me from doing anything else, but since the pain seems specific mostly to climbing, without much improvement despite the rest, I'm pondering my options. Any advice much appreciated.

Rest 4-6 weeks without climbing or doing anything that will aggravate the tendons, stay hydrated, do cardio, limit anything that prevents circulation (diuretics, nicotine, etc). Ease back into climbing easy stuff for shorter periods of time and tape is helpful.

Not an expert on finger injuries at all, but have dealt with very sore knuckle joints though I'm just 21 (Just soreness, I never sustained an injury). Rest is extremely important, but some things that helped my pain were Power Putty, and contrast baths. Power Putty is cheap, easy, and a great way to keep circulation in your fingers and gently build strength back. Once you get back into climbing, warm up by squeezing the putty first.
If you've never tried contrast baths, it's just dipping your hands in very warm water for about a minute, then immediately transferring them to another sink/bucket of ice cold water for another minute. Repeat this 3 times and end with cold water. It not only feels great, but it flushes blood into your vessels, and good circulation can help the healing process and soreness.

Like I said I'm not an expert and this is just general stuff, but, it's worth a try!

"I was thinking about heading back to the gym and getting some mileage in on real easy stuff"

Dude - you are 50yo..............you already know the answer to this.

If by chance you don't: Go for a hike instead. You'll need some time to heal. Well actually at OUR AGE you will need a lot.

Best of luck and hope you are GTG in a while!

Thanks Roots. Don't worry, I was thinking about really mellow, juggy 5.7/8 action. Just concerned that even after close to a couple months of laying off, it doesn't seem a whole lot better.

Another non-expert here :-) But what I found in my research after a couple of relatively minor finger injuries in the past year is that, as long as you don't have a complete separation or something that requires surgery, active recovery is the way to go. The recommendations I got were to do lots of ice and NSAIDs for the first few days until the inflammation is down, and then start using the finger again immediately. Obviously you start just *barely* using it at first and work your way back up, being VERY careful in the process not to re-injure it. But what I was finding is that many experts no longer recommend taking weeks and months off; instead, they suggest you start rehabilitating as soon as you can.

Again, I'm not an expert so you should absolutely do your own research, but was a suggestion I found when I was looking, and it seemed to work well for my injuries (impossible to say how it would've turned out otherwise, of course—it's not exactly a double-blind study).

Once my fingers were starting on the road to recovery, I found that it actually felt really good to stress them a certain amount, as long as I didn't overdo it. They seemed to get better as a result of the use. YMMV.

I posted on this a few hours ago. Then injured my left index finger on a 12. FUUUUUUUUCKKKKKKKK!!???