Sliver

Drew Watson

Member
Messages
2,070
Location
Salt Spring Island, BC Canada
Ok no real pot to this post other than to relay an experience with a sliver and a clinic. I got a really small sliver in my hand the other day off loading some wood. It went in deep and broke off. I always carry a pin with me for such occasions. Well the pin couldn't find it and I wasn't about to do any major surgery with my olfa knife so off to the clinic I went. The Doc Froze the already tender area and of course didn't get the exact right spot so more freezing went in. while he was poking around the blood stgarted flowing so out comes another needle and some kind of drug that slows the bleeding. Now you have to picture me laying on my back with my arm at my side with the doc working on the sliver. I am not aware of exactly what he is doing as he is a doctor and he has gone to school to learn his trade. Well he can't find the sliver. But he has excavated a hole in my hand from what looks like a 1/4 inch deep or at least to the tendon. "Oh well" he tells me "I can't see it and that is all I can do. Flush it lots and maybe the slivver will come out on it's own. If it continues to bother you you might want to go to the hospital and have them look at it. Maybe a plastic surgeon" Ok remember this is a little wood sliver. He has cut my hand leaving a big hole in it and still hasn't found the sliver now he wants to send me home with the open wound. Oh I suggest maybe throwing a stitch in it for caution sake as well as it is already frozen. Well he does that and a bandage goes on and home I go. Well I flush it and bandage it again a couple of times and this morning i get up and go to change the dressing and find that an infection has set in. Gee am I not surprised. Guess what the sliver is still in there too. Guess where i am going today? Hospital first and them maybe back to the clinic to punch the doc with my good hand. :doh: Ok out stretch arms and breath deep and repeat we will not punch the doc, we will not punch the doc. :rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
Drew Do get that thing looked at by another medical professional! On August 25, 2007 a Saturday IIRC, I was finish turning a bowl made of bradford pear given to me by Cecil Arnold in Houston. Long story short, my left forefinger got driven into the rim of the bowl and a splinter around 1/2" long and 1/8" in diameter got driven in near a joint on the finger. Saturday I kept trying to dig it out myself with no success. Saturday night I attended a Eric Burdon and the Animals concert here. Sunday I was in the ER where a PA dug it out and gave me a shot of antibiotics. Monday, with only 2 knuckles showing on that hand and the finger turning dark red and blue and the finger next to it turning dark red, I was back in the ER. After they installed an IV in that arm, I was on IV antibiotics for 3 days. Sometimes...just let it go...it'll fester and come out works......Sometimes it doesn't and the infection can be dangerous!
 
I had a tiny hunk of dunnowood from some particleboard in the shop drive me batty for a couple of months. I got Most of it out, but there was one piece which I couldn't get at with tweezers or a pin. It eventually healed over and there was a callous built up around it but it was perfectly placed just at the point where the edge of my thumb would press on the end of it driving it into a sensitive spot. Well finally one day I had had enough. I got out some nail clippers, did a little surgery and lo and behold I managed to grab onto the end of it. it was less than 1/8" long, but I felt like mounting it on the wall it had bugged me so much.

I'm sorry to hear that the clinic doc was as bad as he was, and that you're still not out of the woods.
 
Thanks guys for stories and the advice. I have been paying attention to it and flushed it again and the swelling is getting to be worse and it is getting rather tender to the touch so i am off to the hospital emergency for a good couple of hrs wait I expect to experience round 2 of medical mayhem. I just can't beleive how stupid this is turning out to be. All this over one little sliver of spruce. I was feeling guilty about wasting a thread on this but it is turning out to be the only wood working that I will be doing today. :rofl:
 
Geez, that isn't any fun. I sure hope you get better and back to woodworking. I've had a few in the 7 years I have been woodworking. I usually wash my hands first in warm water for a while and have a go with tweezers. I usually let it go though, if it bugs me I'll take advil and that usually dulls the pain.
 
Guys I can top all of those... sorry to say.

My 10 yr old son's buddy, was playing with a gang of boys last summer outside and got a small thorn in the base of one of his fingers on his right hand. (can't remember if it was the ring or middle finger.) This kid has a high tolerance of pain, so didn't complain much. But a week or so later had the parents up in the night due to pain.

Over the course of the next FOUR MONTHS they were into the doctor a few times, and even had an ultrasound, with no success. They'd look, they'd poke, maybe take some pain medication, and the pain would go away, and then a week or so later the finger would swell up like a sausage again.

Finally, his dad (our pastor) bypassed all the regular channels, and spoke to an orthopedic surgeon he knew, and this guy squeezed my son's buddy into his schedule. They ended up cutting his finger open from palm to fingertip in a zigzag looking for this sliver.

Yes, they found it. It was a tiny piece of thorn, maybe 3mm long or so. The problem was that the thorn had poked right into the sheath of a tendon. So over the course of those months it kept working its way up through this poor kids finger, sliding along inside the tendon sheath as he flexed and moved his finger. The main reason the doctors kept missing it, was that everyone kept looking at the base of his finger, which is where it went in. By the time they removed it, it was all the way up by the first knuckle (the one closest to the finger tip.)

The good news is that he regained full use of the finger.
Scary, and makes me very cautious about splinters.

...art

ps: I love the sliver-gripper from Lee Valley. Best tweezers I've ever used. But I still sometimes go digging with a pin.
 
Well guys I am back from the hospital. Only 9 hrs later and I have my arm in a splint. I saw the plastic surgen as they are the ones in charge of hands. it seems that this is one serious spot to get an infection that can do some serious damage to a person. Who would have thought i would be sitting here with my arm in what looks like a cast all over a small little sliver. :eek: I have been told that i am unable to return to work till Wed. This really sucks big time.
 
Drew,

That sling may be a pain.....but fighting a serious infection or losing the finger or a hand is a hecka of a lot worse in my book! Did they find the splinter?

Good luck on your recovery!
 
Drew,

That sling may be a pain.....but fighting a serious infection or losing the finger or a hand is a hecka of a lot worse in my book! Did they find the splinter?

Good luck on your recovery!

Hey Ken, yea the sling is a real pain as i am trying to type with one crappy hand. They said it was even more serious than just loosing the hand or arm. They told me that the infections can move really fast in a short time and as it is my left arm it is closer to more serious vital areas like my heart. I don't know if there is truth to this but who am i to question it. Pretty scary, Oh and they didn't even look for the splinter yet as the infection was far past the point of finding anything. All red and sore and covering the entire area around my thumb and palm. I am on heavy antibiotics right now. They had me hooked up to antibiotics by needle for an hr.
 
Hope everything heals properly Drew.
Years ago I was digging out a footer. Got a piece of concrete in the eye, went to emerg. room and they could not find anything and put on a patch and sent me home. Well the next morning I could not open the eye. Concrete was still in my eye. Long story short I had concrete poisoning set in.:( 3 weeks in hospital and 10% loss of vision. During the hospital time I missed my entry date to the Air Force.(Aug. 20, 1984) Was tested for Air System Control Mech. which meant fly time.:D Of coarse they would no longer take me for that position due to 10% vision loss. This was a life changing mistake by an incompetent doctor.:(
 
I hear you Drew.

With my splinter last August, they left the IV in for 3 days and I returned each day for IV antibiotics.

It's amazing how fast some infections can migrate! I quit wearing those "Spandex" watch bands.....I'm a field service engineer for a very large company. I install and maintain CAT scanners, MR scanners and x-ray equipment for a living. I was working in the Chicago area 25 years ago..lived there for 4 1/2 years. One morning I was working in hospital "A" and took my wrist watch off. A small hair on my left wrist got caught in the "Spandex" band on my watch and got pulled out. This happened about 10:00 a.m. That evening about 9:00 p.m. I was working in the 4th hospital of the day when I rolled up my sleeves and took off my watch and noticed a red streak going from my wrist half way up the inside of my left lower arm. I stopped what I was doing and went down the hall to the ER. IIRC they said it was a rapid spreading staff infection. Antibiotic shots and pills. Some infections can be really nasty!

Take care of yourself and mind the doctor!
 
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