Protect your hands.....I broke my pinky on my fretting hand ( it took a hand surgeon to set it) and my meta carpel along with screwing up my wrist (tendons) all because I was fighting (thats the real story.....my mom thinks I shut it in a car door....) with swords - I use to practice Wu-Shu..Chinese broadsword - and it made me change my playing style. Because of the break, I have a limited R/O/M in my pinky but luckily hand strength is now back (I broke it 3.5 years ago) but flexibility is still an issue. The type of setting was so cool. The emergency room doctor could not set it right....trying to set it didn't hurt to terribly bad...the local pain killer shot hurt more than anything...even the break. I digress.
A Mongolian/Chinese Doctor by the Name of Narong Manetovat - a hand specialist - had to put it in a traction setting because the tendon was pulling the bone (broke at the 1st and 2nd knuckle) over top of itself - towards the wrist because I was gripping the sword so tightly when it was broke.
So what he did was pulled my finger straight out....put a splint (the metal and foam splint ) under my pinky that went from under my palm at the pinky to about 3 inches past the tip of my finger. Then he put strands of medical tape from the tip (3rd knuckle) of my broken finger to the end of the splint very tightly then bent the splint to a natural position (imagine proper typing form for your hands)...this put tension and hence the name traction on my finger. To top it off for 2 broken bones in my hand (my pinky and the meta carpel behind it) I was in a cast up to my mid forearm for 3 months.
It took 2 years to get back to be able to play a guitar and I still had to change my style. I have been playing for 20 years now and already have uncle arthr making my fretting hand hurt bad...this break made it worse. You might have a little tinge of traumatic arthritis cause of this...so be careful!:
The point to my long winded story is please protect your hands. If you don't you wont be picking with anything if you Darwin it up bad enough.
Hope your boo boo gets better quick and you get to grow those nails out again.
Guitars: Epiphone Special 2 LP modded with a SD Pearly Gates and a SD Alnico 2 flat strat pro.300K pots.Tone pros Brass Stop tailpiece.Dunlop frets dressed to .031,LSR roller nut, Spezel custom stainless steel locking tuners. Satin finished neck.Fender MIM 50's strat modded with LSR roller nut, graph tech string tree,sperzel satin chrome locking tuners, graph tech saddles,300K push pull volume for "neck on pup" and 200K tone pots.PUPS:Neck seymore duncan QP single coil for strat. Middle: Seymour Duncan JB Jr with coil tap (so actually a 9 way tone selection). Bridge: Same as neck.Amps/Cabs.2 Epi Valve Jr's, Peavey Delta Blues 1x15. Randall RG200es,Guitar research 4x8 cab loaded W/celestion super 8's and rewired for two-2x8 operation.Marshall 4x12 slant lead cab,Johnson cab 1x12.