Note to Mods:
Not asking for medical advice, I don’t need any thank OG, just wondering.
So the other morning (before coffee) I swung a little wide heading for the kitchen and caught the leg of a stepping stool with my two smallest toes. I was of course barefoot. :eek: OUCH. Woke me the hell up. Anyway no harm was done other than some pain for a few minutes.
But this got me wondering, if I had banged it hard enough to break those toes, what is the standard treatment for such an injury? A cast up to my crotch? A tourniquet around my neck?* Or do the doctors and nurses all gather around and point and laugh, and that is the extent of the treatment?
*Long considered the proper course of treatment if your pain in the ass boss cuts his finger
IANAD but I have broken several small toes over the years. There’s usually not a whole lot a doctor can do for them, other than tell you to ‘buddy-tape’ it to the uninjured toes–or in your case, such uninjured toes as Fate has left you. This is done simply by taking some medical adhesive tape and wrapping it around the two bad toes and the other two uninjured small toes. With me that always seemed to make the pain subside a little, too.
Unless you break it so badly that bone comes through the skin, nothing. If you go to the ER, you’ll get an X-ray that shows it is/they are broken, and maybe get a flat ortho shoe until the swelling goes down to the point you can wear a regular shoe.
If the toe is bent, it might be set and taped to the nearest neighbor. It also might not. A compound fracture requires surgery because of the open wound.
Qualifications to answer this question: Recommended 2nd Dan Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do (retired from the MA world); presently a student EMT.
Anecdote, but I’m pretty sure I broke my little toe when this guy stepped on it. Never did anything about it, and it just doesn’t bend very easily now.
I’ve broken every toe on both feet in the course of my life except the 2 big ones. Most of those were during my inglorious martial arts years, but not all. I got to the point that unless I took out more than one at a time, I never bothered with the doctors.
One of the mysteries of life that I intend to ask Og about when I die is, given that a pinkie toe is so inconsequential to walking or normal body operation, it hurts so f*cking bad when you break it.
Well if you go before I do, and OG gives you the answer would you try and send it back? I would love to know this also.
If I go first, I will do the same for you.
As the current carrier of a broken toe. The normal course of action is public humiliation. You see, breaking a toe is the most boring break you can get. You’d get more sympathy if anything else happened to you. You don’t get a cast. You don’t miss work. People don’t say “Oh, poor baby.”
You just get to walk around for an eternity with a toe that has big psychic neon lights surrounding it that say “BROKEN TOE, KICK ME!”
freakin’ toe is never gonna stop hurting. Every time I think it is ok, bam, something knocks it, hits hit, twists it. freakin’ frackin’ phooey!
