Has anyone else had an injury their doctors couldn't even name?

I'd push harder on this one instead of just waiting it out. Two fingers going numb when you raise your arm, plus visible muscle loss at the base of the thumb, points at a nerve getting compressed or stretched, not leftover swelling. Swelling doesn't shrink a muscle. When I wrecked years back I broke my collarbone too, and about six weeks later my hand started doing weird stuff, pins and needles, weak grip. Turned out the crash had stretched the nerve bundle that runs from your neck down under the collarbone, and the way the bone healed was pinching things whenever I lifted my arm. Took about five months and three doctors before anyone connected those dots.

So yes, it can absolutely take forever, and the 'huh, that's an odd one' reaction is unfortunatley normal. Nerve problems are hard to pin down because the tests can come back clean early on even when something's wrong. But the shrinking muscle is the part I wouldn't sit on. Muscle that doesn't get nerve signals starts wasting, and that doesn't always come back even after the nerve is fixed. Ask the specialist straight up whether this could be a brachial plexus issue from the crash, and whether you should be seeing someone who does nerve work specifically, like a hand surgeon with nerve training or a neurologist who handles trauma cases. General docs and even general ortho guys see so few of these that a shrug is almost expected.

My timeline: crash in June, first real diagnosis in November, surgery the following February. The test you're waiting on, if it's the kind where they stimulate the nerves and measure the signals, that one usally gives an actual answer when nothing else has. Also ask whether the collarbone healed in a way that narrowed the space the nerves pass through, because sometimes addressing the bone position is what fixes the hand. Just don't let anyone park you on 'come back in three months' while a muscle is visibly flattening. That's the one deadline that matters here.

Not a bike injury in my case but a work accident, crushed my leg against a trailer hitch. My foot stopped lifting right and I got told it was bruising for about two months. Turns out the nerve got compressed and nobody checked til a physio flagged it. So yeah, from someone new here, the runaround seems pretty normal unfortunately. Do you get the tingling in daily life too or only with the arm up? Mine was constant at first and I kind of learned to ignore it, which I regret now. Also did they actually look at the hand itself or just order tests?

Seconding the don't sit around part. When I low-sided a few years back my thumb wouldn't grip right and every doc visit the symptoms had conveniently faded by the time I got on the table. What finally worked was filming my hand doing the tingly thing on my phone and taking prints of the muscle comparison week by week. Doctors take a video way more serious than your word. Also keep every test result and ask for copies, made a huge difference when I got shuffled to the third guy. Did the numbness start before or after the cast came off? That timing detail seems like something a nerve doc would want to know.

This is a bit scary to read because I had no idea a hand problem could connect back to the collarbone like that. I always figured broken bones just heal and that's the end of it. So when the doctor checks your arm position and the fingers go funny, is that like a clue they can actually use, or does it only show up on the machine test? I ask because my cousin broke her arm last year and everything seemed fine until months later, and the physio person caught it just by moving her arm around in a certain way. Seems like the body hides stuff in weird spots.