Project: Splinter Finger
4/12/10 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wobblerlorriWent to the doctor today for my quarterly check up, and asked her to look at my finger that was impaled by the huge-ass splinter a week plus ago. She hmmm'ed over it, and said, "Looks like you have a pretty good infection going on there."
I figured it was, it still hurts, it's swollen, it's white right where the splinter went in, but no streaks or anything. I've done a little home surgery on it, with nail clippers, antiseptic wash, and neosporin + band-aids, but never really seem to get anything out of except a little bead of bloody serum. No exciting outpourings of pus, no stench from hell, nothing exciting at all.
So I invited her to open it up if she'd like. She got a hypodermic needle, some 4x4's, and peroxide, and went to work. I'm pretty stoic, so I didn't flinch when she went in. She pried the needle around, and then squeezed it, but she didn't get anything of note out of it either.
"Hm," she said. "I can't seem to really get anything out..." I told her I couldn't either, but I knew there was more in there than meets the eye. Mike volunteered that they'd done x-rays on it, but didn't see any wood. She said she wasn't too sure about the efficacy of x-rays in finding splinters; they can find big pieces of wood (like the legendary tree trunk up the guy's ass) but little stuff isn't radio-opaque...
So she bubbled it out with peroxide, told me that the damage to the healing tissue is an acceptable trade-off in this case, because we don't want it healing up over infection (that's called an abscess, for those playing at home), so I'm to keep it bandaged so it doesn't close up, and to clean it out with peroxide. She said I can put polysporin on it.
Got home, and I happened to think of good old ichthammol drawing salve -- we used it on Spot all the time, the Appaloosa mare with the bad foot. She got abscesses in that poor foot every 6 weeks or so, and we'd soak it in epsom salt water, then pack it with ichthammol (aka black salve), wrap it with 4x4's and VetRap (aka Kerlix), and put a protective boot on the whole shebang. The ichthammol and the epsom soaks cleared her up in about a week.
So I got out my ichthammol (I use it on those deep zits you get in your ears sometimes... well, okay, that I get), cleaned the thing with peroxide, and put on a good dollop of ich. Then put on a band-aid and went about my day. Later in the afternoon I did some minor surgery, clipped off the hard dead skin and kind of opened up the entry point a little, bubbled it out with peroxide, and redressed it with ich and a band-aid. I think I got it opened into a lower layer, because the peroxide kind of stung a little this time. Which is good.
(My doctor is so cool -- she thinks doing home surgery is a great idea, especially when you have a clue, like I do.)
I'm also on 1000 mg Bactrim twice a day -- she was astounded the ER doc didn't put me on an antibiotic.
So hopefully between the daily meddling by me and the Bactrim, we'll get this licked.
I figured it was, it still hurts, it's swollen, it's white right where the splinter went in, but no streaks or anything. I've done a little home surgery on it, with nail clippers, antiseptic wash, and neosporin + band-aids, but never really seem to get anything out of except a little bead of bloody serum. No exciting outpourings of pus, no stench from hell, nothing exciting at all.
So I invited her to open it up if she'd like. She got a hypodermic needle, some 4x4's, and peroxide, and went to work. I'm pretty stoic, so I didn't flinch when she went in. She pried the needle around, and then squeezed it, but she didn't get anything of note out of it either.
"Hm," she said. "I can't seem to really get anything out..." I told her I couldn't either, but I knew there was more in there than meets the eye. Mike volunteered that they'd done x-rays on it, but didn't see any wood. She said she wasn't too sure about the efficacy of x-rays in finding splinters; they can find big pieces of wood (like the legendary tree trunk up the guy's ass) but little stuff isn't radio-opaque...
So she bubbled it out with peroxide, told me that the damage to the healing tissue is an acceptable trade-off in this case, because we don't want it healing up over infection (that's called an abscess, for those playing at home), so I'm to keep it bandaged so it doesn't close up, and to clean it out with peroxide. She said I can put polysporin on it.
Got home, and I happened to think of good old ichthammol drawing salve -- we used it on Spot all the time, the Appaloosa mare with the bad foot. She got abscesses in that poor foot every 6 weeks or so, and we'd soak it in epsom salt water, then pack it with ichthammol (aka black salve), wrap it with 4x4's and VetRap (aka Kerlix), and put a protective boot on the whole shebang. The ichthammol and the epsom soaks cleared her up in about a week.
So I got out my ichthammol (I use it on those deep zits you get in your ears sometimes... well, okay, that I get), cleaned the thing with peroxide, and put on a good dollop of ich. Then put on a band-aid and went about my day. Later in the afternoon I did some minor surgery, clipped off the hard dead skin and kind of opened up the entry point a little, bubbled it out with peroxide, and redressed it with ich and a band-aid. I think I got it opened into a lower layer, because the peroxide kind of stung a little this time. Which is good.
(My doctor is so cool -- she thinks doing home surgery is a great idea, especially when you have a clue, like I do.)
I'm also on 1000 mg Bactrim twice a day -- she was astounded the ER doc didn't put me on an antibiotic.
So hopefully between the daily meddling by me and the Bactrim, we'll get this licked.
