Thanks a lot vam44, that makes me feel a lot better. I've thought about taping it to isolate the area to let it get some good rest. Unfortunately, I work in a factory so I use my hands very often, especially my thumbs!

How important is the beginning stage of healing, for example, the strain happened about three months ago; is there a loss in maximum healing potential if I only wrap my hand now, as opposed to if I wrapped it the day after the acute pressure was applied and the strain occured.

Thank you all for the help.