Hey everyone! Today I’m going to be talking all about the fact that I’m missing both of my pinky fingers.

It’s more than likely something you’ve never came across before – I certainly haven’t met anybody else missing theirs from birth.. I’ve only ever met people missing them from an accident of some sorts!

I thought it would be a good idea to include some information about my missing fingers and give you an insight into how and when it affects me, as I know it’s extremely rare and something many people have wanted to ask me about but haven’t been sure how to.

The condition I was born with that caused me to be missing my two pinky fingers altogether is called symbrachydactyly.

The fingers had not formed at all when I was in the womb, no bone or anything.. it was just like I was only meant to have 4 fingers on each of my hands right from the start!

My case is extremely rare because of the combination of being born with this deformity as well as my leg deformity(PFFD); and the chances of it affecting both of my hands are even smaller.. but it did!

Another odd and extremely rare thing to happen on top of everything else was that 2 of my fingers on my left hand were fused together at birth – I was operated on around age 6M-1yr to split the fingers and they used a skin graft from the top of my thigh as there wasn’t enough skin to cover both fingers individually.

This condition is called Syndactyly and is quite rare in humans.

Below is a picture of my hands – the 2 fingers on the right of the hand with the watch are the ones that were fused together.

Does missing both of your fingers cause you problems?

Not really! Apparently pinky fingers really aren’t that useful anyway so I honestly don’t notice that anything is missing. I’m typing this right now totally normally – and I can play a little piano too! My grip is not affected by my missing fingers. I don’t believe that missing my pinky fingers has actually affected my life in anyway; the thing that has (as i’ll explain below) is the two fingers that were fused together.

How did two of your fingers being fused together at birth affect you?

Because of the skin graft I had to have in order to separate the fingers and have enough skin for both of them I have had a few problems arise.

One of the problems is that because the skin graft was taken from the top of my thigh, the skin graft on my fingers does grow a lot more hair than normal!

Another problem is I don’t have much strength in those fingers at all so I’m not very good at gripping with my left hand.. and gripping something heavy with both of my hands is therefore affected (I’m right handed).



Have your hands affected you in any other way?

When I had severe self esteem issues, I would always worry about people noticing my hands.. just like I’d worry about them noticing my prosthetic leg.

Funnily enough, most people I’ve met in my life really don’t notice until I tell them!

Whenever I’d be shopping and about to buy something.. I’d arrive at the counter and be internally cringing at the thought of the cashier noticing my missing fingers as I was handing over the money.

It sounds really silly looking back now – but I was just so terrified of being ‘different’.

You can read about my journey to self esteem here. Right now I’m the most confident I have ever been, so I don’t think about my hands at all unless someone mentions them. I usually get rid of the baby hairs that grow on the fingers with small nail scissors, but I think I may be able to get laser hair removal on them too in the future.

Having little strength in the left hand can be difficult as I can’t really carry things that are a little heavy or slightly dangerous (like a kettle or pot full of boiling water) because of the added worry that my balance is also bad because of my prosthetic leg.

Since creating my blog I have chatted to 2 other people who were also born with PFFD and are missing fingers.. which completely astounded me!

My parents were told that my hand conditions and leg condition are completely unrelated but it does make you wonder.

I genuinely didn’t expect anyone else born with PFFD out there to also be missing fingers!

It took SO much confidence for me to actually take a picture of my hands for this post – something I have been so self conscious about my entire life, but it was freeing to take the picture and upload it here for the world to see.. I’m so proud of myself!

I still manage to live a fantastic life despite these limitations and having other people lift heavy things for me / trimming the little hairs I get is just something second nature to me now.. It barely bothers me at all! 🙂

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