Hey,
I very recently bruised my knuckle and it has been swollen for a couple of days but its going down. I love pad work and bag work, and I would like to get back into it as soon as possible, especially since I have a grading coming up in a week and a bit. Does anyone know around how long that takes to heal? is it a matter of days or weeks?

How did you bruise your knuckle?

I punched this guy for looking at me!
Joke!

I was doing pad work with focus pads and my pad man was this guy who just joined us and I wanted to show him what pad work was like, so he held the pad in the most weird angle and sloppy and as i chain punched it he moved it, I hit the wall behind him full power.

The thing is sometimes it hurts and sometimes it doesnt, and from experience from injuries its best to let them heal completely, so I was just wandering how long something like that takes.

About the same time as it'll take for you to stop being an idiot and going for a pad that's held against a wall.

thank you for the sympathy and the advice, I really apreciate it.

I almost mistook it for humour, but then I realised you had none

Don't worry about him.

From my own experiences, it takes about a week.

Thats if you take good care of it and rest it well.

Depends on how hard you hit the wall. I did the classic stupid "I'm a guy, I'm angry, I'm going to hit the wall" thing. Hurt me for about 3 months at least. Of course I was still going to MA classes at the time and hitting pads, people, etc.

Just be careful with it. Also avoid hitting walls.

Ha. That reminds me of my friend at one of our tests. We had to break a board with a spinning back fist, but we had to hit it a certain way so we wouldn't hurt our knuckles (we had to turn it so that we would be hitting the board with the fleshy side of the hand *nearest to the pinky*). Well, I did it fine, but then it was her turn and she, uh, forgot to turn her hand, and hit the thing with full force. She broke it, thankfully, but she also busted a pretty big blood vessel (in her right hand too. Not good for writing!). She has also recently broken her pinky from carrying 4 fajita skillets and slipping while at work. Yikes.
I'd say you just need to keep ice on it every hour. I hope you recover soon!

Did you get ice on it straight away? If so, then it increases chances of a speedy recovery a lot. If you've damaged the ligament that actually makes up the knuckle, you could be waiting months.

BTW, ouch! I did that 20 years ago and broke 3 bones in my hand. Had it X-Rayed?

when I was dumber and 15 years prettier , I punched into a speaker cabinet from the rear of a speaker and smashed my middle knuckle on the woofer magnet inside. dumb and drunk. hurt for 2 months, I didn't go to the hospital and it never really set right. now it's acually an asset having the middle knuckle slightly larger. it's the reason I eventually changed to vertical (and later 3/4) fist punching since the knuckle was throwing my wrist alignment off hitting makiwara with full twist.