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Not Mallet finger but........ 12-Feb-2011 At 12:31:35 AM Elaine Stevenson

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@ JDB:
Wait and see approach sounds pretty text book, but if the condition is interfering with your climbing - or liable to be made worse by climbing - then **get a second opinion**.

Personally I'd recommend a practice along the lines of the city-based practice that I posted earlier - as opposed to a local GP clinic or a full-on sports medicine centre. As sports docs, they'll appreciate how you use your body and how something innocuous like a ganglion in the wrong place could be a major hassle; as docs who (also) see a wide range of other conditions in elite athletes as well as a rather well-heeled CBD clientele, I'd expect them to be pretty damned up to date on current treatment approaches.

'Wait and see' is not necessarily the only option used in Australia, and nor is surgical excision. The link from eatonhand.com gives a pretty good explanation of the various options. Be wary though, it's an internet reference and although the info seems good, it if was published a while back, treatment strategies may have changed.

As for the 'bible treatment', DON'T GO THERE. It's an old folk remedy that can do more harm than good. Sure, you could get lucky it may work but in the process you may damage nearby structures that were working fine and then you'll just have additional problems to deal with.

The other option - that isn't referred to on the eatonhand link - is naturopathy. But if you do decide to give that a try, make sure you ask first whether the person you want to see has had success in treating ganglions. (sorry - no one specific comes to mind here, someone else on Chockstone could recommend someone for you to try). I've certainly heard of people getting good results with naturopathy for ganglions, but I also known of situations where the naturopathic approach didn't work for the individual/s concerned.

You may also find that Chinese medicine (TCM) can help too, if you wanted to go down that path. Ganglions are one of the areas I'm interested in doing some research on at some point and the TCM practitioners I've spoken with about them have indicated that there are herbs they use to treat them.