posted
Dude, I know the feeling. A few months ago we were doing some work in the backyard, and my next door neighbor accidentally dropped a railroad tie on my big toe. Broke the nail in half (it eventually came right off), swelled the toe up nicely, and that sucker throbbed for hours.
Posts: 1855 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Actually, there is little to no pain involved, besides the whole "just as a reminder, yes, you did hit your finger 2 hours ago with a hammer. Stop using the 'e' 'd' and 'x' key."
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posted
The first picture I looked at, somehow I thought it was the nail side, only without a nail. I was actually getting grossed out until I realized it was the other side.
Posts: 1990 | Registered: Feb 2001
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Actually, you can whack your finger hard enough that the nail comes off. Not torn off, really, but just falls off due to the swelling.
It does eventually grow back, takes a few months though. And yes, the sight of that can be pretty distressing.
Posts: 196 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I sympathise with your affliction. Last december I got my fingers caught between a door. At the time it didn't hurt awfully much, but that might have been due to the effects of alcohol. The nail on my middle finger was busted and looked rather gross; black, blue and purple from dried blood. It took almost five months for it to heal. But, as you noticed, there isn't much pain involved. The most annoying thing about a nail that's hanging on by a thread is the constant fear of getting it caught behind something and tearing it off tall the way. I wore a bandaid around my finger to lessen the chances of that happening, but wearing a bandaid for long periods of time doesn't do wonders for the condition of your skin.
Feel better. And try to even the score.
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If you're really, really lucky, the pressure behind the nail will become so great that the doctor will have to drill a hole in it. Then you get to watch blood shoot into the air when they break through. Let me know how high it gets.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
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During the summer about a year or two ago as I was shutting the door on my murcury sable, the hand I was using to shut the door slipped past the door as it shut. I caught the nail tip of the middle finger of my right hand in the door, leaving my finger clamped in between the completely seated front and back doors. Although I had locked the door, the window was open I was able to twist around to unlock and open the door at the expense of additional damage to the finger tip. I started walking into my house in that place between knowing it was going to hurt and where it actually started to throb.
I had injured fingers before in cutting incidents that were the result of everything from scouting to cutco knives, or crushing them under 3/4 inch plywood or cement chunks when I was working construction. Once I even twisted the skin off the side of my thumb when using a beefy milwaukee drill with a one inch bit that hit a knot. So I wasn't too worried and didn't stop to take a look in the driveway just headed in to wash it up and administer first aid.
The potential impact of this injury didn't hit me until I finally looked at it after running it under some water to wash away the blood. It was bleeding freely and although most of the tissue was intact, on the top and bottom you could see tearing resulting from the twisting motion necessary to open the door. Although cuticle (lunule?) was still in place most of the rest of the fingernail was twisted off.
It was almost as if my finger nail had been twisted five or ten degrees to the left. As that sunk in I almost passed out. I think it was the blood, because that has never happened to me. For intance, I didn't even pass out when I thought my broken toe was dislocated and asked a buddy to try and pop it back into joint.
My guess is that I was experienceing some mild stages of shock. After that I applied pressure to stem the blood flow, which allowed me to feel that there was no broken bone. I dressed the wound, and sat down on my couch to rest. The annoying thing is that I felt like I had worked a very hard day of work even though it was still morning.
Fortunately the injury healed well, although I probably should have gone to the doctor for stiches. My finger looks like it has an underused joint under the fingernail. Fun stuff.
Posts: 686 | Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
What's strange about this injury of nathan's is that it's oddly pretty much pain-free.
I've also shut my finger in a locked car door (there's nothing like that moment of realizing you can't pull your finger out and ohmybobitsstuck!) and have had the drill through the nail to release the pressure (that's relief right there) and his finger looks bad.
But he's not really in any pain. Nothing significant, bruise-like pain, but that's it.
posted
I got my thumb nail caught in a door frame last *March* and the nail is *still* trying to grow back normally.
It was actually kinda interesting to watch-- the nail fell off, then grew really thin and weak for a while, then decided to make up for the fact that it wasn't growing much so decided to grow really thickly, creating a bump between the thin stuff and the new growth. Then there was a new bump when the nail finally figured out the correct way to grow and went back to doing that. I figure there's still a month or so before I can clip off that last bump and have a normal thumbnail again.
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posted
The bruise spread a bit, but the swelling went down, and there is slightly more pain today, but nothing more than bruise related.
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posted
I slammed my finger in a car door too, mack. And, I drilled the hole myself, because I didn't have insurance at the time and didn't want to go to a doctor. Wow, did it feel better. The nail eventually fell off and grew back.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:the nail fell off, then grew really thin and weak for a while, then decided to make up for the fact that it wasn't growing much so decided to grow really thickly
That's pretty normal from my understanding. My own finger did the same thing.
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