Attempting DIY operation

Cobleskill

Cobleskill

Treehouser
Joined
Dec 31, 2006
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Location
Western New York near Lake Ontario
I jammed a nice wide splinter of White Oak under my thumb nail 2 1/2 or 3 weeks ago. It came out intact I thought. About 10 days later I noticed the finger getting sore and could tell it was a little warm as well. I probed with a needle and got it to drain and soaked it in hot epsom salts for 1/2 hour twice a day. After a bit of that I could see what looked like a piece of splinter more than 1/2 way to the cuticle.

Standard procedure for a MD seems to be to cut a V out of your nail to get to the splinter. I considered using a Dremel and a cutoff wheel at slow speed. Finally got up the nerve to probe down that deep with pointed tweezers. I didn't really feel anything solid but maybe it was small pieces left that got soft. It wasn't as tender as I anticipated. Dumped some hydrogen peroxide in the hole and hoping for the best.
 
You can also heat up a piece of metal and melt through nail

My favorite home surgery was removing a deeply embedded metal grinding from my eyeball with a powerful magnet
 
Double dayum!

Where the heck is the eating-popcon smiley??:/:

Good on ya if you can pull it off. But health is wealth so don't wait too long to see a pro.
 
I've heard of melting through, too, like for a blood blister beneath the nail.

Never heard of a DIY magnetic metal extraction, only hospitals. Resourceful? What kind of magnet did you use?
 
Red hot needle is faster and totally painless, since the blood geyser cools it as soon as it penetrates the nail.
 
Potato will draw bacteria/infection out like crazy. Scrape it with a spoon to get a bunch of pulp, cover wound with gauze for seperation put on potato wrap with gauze, cover with plastic to keep potato moist overnight and bedding/other things clean. Pain of infection gone the next day but, learned to do it a night or two more to get all infection out.
 
Skills, Rajan.

Granted, this is easy for me to say, but... Uh, you COULD just tough it out. Sounds like you have taken adequate precautions against infections, so... I dunno, You ever notice how often animals actually get brought down by a natural wound? Almost never.
 
That is remarkable. Sort of hard to fathom from a human standpoint, the resilience.
 
Getting warm-- sign of infection, Jed. Mentioned in the OP.


The potato gauze makes me think of a poultice like Outlaw Josie Wales. Mastitis (inflammation of a milk duct, and a not uncommon problem after birth) can be treated with a poultice. I think potato was one of a couple ingredients. Before penicillin, there was poultice.
 
I'm all about home surgery. I even have a kit I made.


I also recall 4 days in the hospital with a real threat of losing part of my hand from a piece of hawthorn in the lining of a tendon that became infected. None of it was funny except for the fact that I could call for morphine constantly. That part was funny. There was talk of exploratory surgery to get what was left out if the IV antibiotics couldn't get ahold of the situation. Wood doesn't show on an x ray and isn't always clear on an ultrasound. A piece of Hawthorn stuck in the knuckle where my index finger meets my hand and we pulled it out with linemans pliers at work and I washed my hand. All was well until my hand swelled up and felt like it was on fire a week later. I actually jumped up from my in laws Easter dinner table and bolted out the door and got myself to a hospital when the pain became too much

Seriously, picking a splinter is manly. Risking infection is not. Weigh it out.
 
inbredJed said:
Sounds like you have taken adequate precautions against infections, so...
Click to expand...

Not sure that is so....he cleaned it and used H202 but did not mention any anti-biotics..I would at least use some topical Neosporin.

H2O2 cleans but there will still be some bacteria in there.
 
Are you asking me? If so, make a fist. The bump of the index finger knuckle where it joins the hand. In there somewhere in the knuckle.
 
I got the hawthorn itself out. Just the smallest speck of bark or what have you that stayed in there was the culprit. Infection down in under the surface of the skin is serious business. It can change your life. I was unaware of that. I was in the ER like "ill need some antibiotics and something for the pain and ill be on my way". They were like "not so fast, you've got a problem here".
 
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I know a little bit about that. I had a scab on my elbow that seemed a little infected. Did not remember how it happened. Put neosporin on it and it seemed to heal fine. After a while I noticed I had some fluid on my elbow, no heat, no pain. I had water on the knee before and figured it might have been like that. Weeks went by and all of sudden it was sore and becoming worse by the hour. Ended up in the hospital on iv antibiotics and dilaudid.
 
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