I was browsing some Alpinist content on their site and saw this photo;

http://www.alpinist.com/doc/ALP27

Which in turn lead me to wonder;

What is the recovery process when you find yourself in the unfortunate position of losing fingers or toes to frost bite?

How does it affect your climbing, might one have balance issues or require extensive physical therapy?

edit: typos

Tommy Caldwell lost a finger to a table saw, and he is still crushing 5.14 free routes. There are plenty of high altitude mountaineers slogging their way up the Himalayas sans a couple toes. As long as you don't lose too many digits, you should be OK.

I'm not a doctor, but I have heard amputation due to frostbite is a lot harder to recover from than from industrial or car accidents. Mainly due the extreme prolong nerve damages from frostbite. After the surgery, many patients have to relocate to warmer temp areas simply because the nerve system can't handle the cold, causing excrutiating pain to the patients.

I can't speak to amputations, but i can babble a bit about frostbite and frostnip after a F*ck-Up Supreme a few three years ago (which shall remain un-detailed in order to protect the innocent and the idiotic)

First dark burgundy turning to black spots on the fingers at the first knuckles, all fingers except thumbs as well as big and second toes - looked very similar to bad spots on a banana for 4-5 days, then swelling and cracking, luckily not much puss, so the damage was mild. still, the skin began to 'exfoliate' and spread down further - i only use that term because that's what it looked like - just started to swell and shred and slough off - pretty gross.

There was absolutely no feeling or sensitivity at all in the fingers down to the hand for almost two months. when the feeling began to come back, the pain was pretty intense, and even months after that phase, shooting pains would ride up and down the arms. that extremely enjoyable part lasted maybe 5 months, during which my sensitivity to cold was severe (wearing gloves in 60F degree weather.) The scars are actually pretty minor, considering. a little white reminder on each hand, every moment of every day..

Walking was extremely painful, but the first thing to return to normality. Wearing boots to protect the toes, I could lead easy grades (to 5.8 or so) within three and a half months., but only very carefully and sporadically.

Once the sloughing stopped on the fingers, they regained their strength quite quickly. So, even with a very mild case such as this, easily six months to full recovery.

Two interesting points: i had lost all feeling in my heels years and years ago, i assume due to wear and tear on the trails, but after the frostbite, i now have full feeling in all parts of the feet again. Also, on the HomeopathicWhackoTheory front, I swear that the skin on my hands would heal three or four times faster than normal if i drank lots of almond milk that day compared to days that i did not. perhaps, almonds being a mild naturally occurring anti-inflammatory agent, it allowed the swelling in the fingers to go down and the repairing work of the less constricted blood vessels to act more quickly. just a pet theory, but it sure seemed to work.

anyway, given that this was the mountaineering equivalent of tying one's nethers to a tree limb and then jumping off, i cannot honestly recommend getting frostbite.

I'm afraid free climbing is in many cases no longer possible, when you lose your toes.
You can't fit your climbing shoes properly, you can't stand well on small steps. It sucks but your climbing abilities decrease radically I guess.
In one of interviews before his tragic death on Manaslu, Piotr Morawski told about his frostbites on K2 and subsequent amputations that he had to learn to live with it - freeclimbing was no longer a sport for him but he fell in love with running and could still climb in high mountains. After an amputation you have to accept your limitations and sometimes drop or change your passions.

I have lost the first knuckle on three fingers and most of my finger tips feel permanently slightly numb, like when your hand goes to sleep. It was hard at first to adjust to rock climbing with the lack of sensation, but I think I have pretty much overcome it by now. Luckily, all the feeling in my toes returned ok. It is a long messy healing process, where you basically just wait to see what falls off and what returns to normal. All the while, much of the remaining tissue blisters, swells, comes off, and is very prone to infection. It took me ~7 months to heal and there were several infections in the bone and surviving tissue that almost caused my doctors to amputate more of each finger. Luckily, because all the nerves die, it is not very painful.