Missing middle finger tip help

[dbritton]

Hey everyone.
This is obviously my first post.
I am missing the tip of my middle finger on my left hand. I have tried adapting my chord playing in different ways with some success. I would like to know if there are any prosthetic tips available for people with this problem. I have considered trying to learn to play left handed, any ideas?
Hope this is the correct place for this question.
Danny

[ren]

As you may well know, Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath lost the tips of all his fretting hand fingers in a machine press just before the band started touring. He plays with lighter gauge strings and does have some sort of prosthetic tips, so they must be available, but I'm afraid I couldn't tell you where from. Maybe your doctor could advise?

I just did a google search on 'prosthetic fingertips' and Tony Iommi featured in all of the first 8 results!

[dbritton]

Thanks for the response. I found the same results.

[Leedogg]

If you do decide to learn to play left-handed you could be like Jerry Garcia who was missing half of his middle finger on his strumming/picking hand.

[t_shirtsnjeans]

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y7/gitpikker58/100_1158.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y7/gitpikker58/100_1157.jpg

These are on my picking hand and I do fingerstyle all the time. This happened while riding a motorcycle and it took a few years to get back to fingerpicking but now it's just second nature.
Have you tried wrapping the tip in tape just leaving the tip exposed? I know that I tried to play left handed and it seemed the flesh was just too flexible and my fingers were hitting several strings.
I just thought of that so I may give it a try. Good luck.

[Kutzki]

Toni Iommi's fingertips were glass-he lost the nerves at the tips so he got some glass sorta melted on as tips. Some people say he could take them off, some say that he couldnt. Anyways, I would just get some thimbles going on.
Good luck with that and hope that helped.