I’ve broken bones, sprained ankles and wrists, pulled muscles, and I’ve even had Kidney Stones. Kidney Stones are by far the worst pain I’ve ever felt. However, this toe nail removage thang is something altogether new when it comes to pain.
First, my GP told me they’d block me from the knees down…this didn’t happen. Have you been lucky enough to have a needle inserted in between your toes? Not to mention nearly a dozen “shots” around the nail?
At 3:00pm Friday, my toe started to sing…It didn’t stop until Sunday pm. The Dr. told me he’d write me a script…so I could manage the pain. He forgot to write it, I forgot to ask for it. What a mistake that was.
The worst of it is over…half day at work today…thank christ.
Never had the toenail done, but I’ve lost a thumb nail. I managed to hit my thumb with a hammer. Hard. Twice, within a half hour. The second time brought tears to my eyes, and I very nearly tried to throw the hammer right THROUGH the wall. Dammit, that hurt.
The thumb bruised something awful, the nailbed stayed dark black for a long time, and the nail eventually peeled away and came off. I sympathize with ya, Jimmie!
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right.
-H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)
As I was walking down a flight of stairs in a very old building in downtown Lexington KY, I caught my pinky nail on a very sharp piece of potruding metal behind the hand-rail.
It ripped the entire pinky nail off. What was exposed was a very soft, very irritated, very pink, and very bloody piece of flesh. It was amazing to actually see what is behind your fingernails.
The actual ripping off of the nail, and the associated pain with doing so, was not nearly as bad as having the nail grow back in. G-d… now that was painful.
My mom slammed her thumb in the car door (trying catch the door before it shut - forgot something in the car), breaking the thumb and ended up losing part of the nail. The thumb healed and the nail grew back eventually, but boy was it ugly in the meantime.
One year later, same restaurant, same car:
“Hey Mom, didn’t you slam your thumb in the car door here last year.”
“Yup.”
Slam. Ow.
You guessed it.
Funny now, but boy was she hurting.
Roommate had a badly ingrown toenail removed. Nasty, he was in a bad mood for weeks while it healed. Trust me it looks much better now, and he’s in a better mood.
I get ingrown toenails occasionally, and I’ve had both of my big toe’s nails removed. About six years ago, it was the right foot’s, and it was a complete removal.
Then, this past January, I had about half of the left foot’s nail removed.
I had a pretty good podiatrist the last time, and while he gave me four novocaine shots on my big toe, I was a brave little boy and didn’t wince or close my eyes.
It happened on a Friday, and I headed to Philadelphia that afternoon for the weekend. About thirty minutes after I left the doctor, the novocaine started to wear off, and I was in a world of pain for about two days.
The nail grew back in the springtime and all’s well now.
I had the nail on my right big toe removed without the benefit of anasthetic or medical personel. It rates as one of the most painful things I have ever experienced.
I’ve broken my toe before, and severely sprained both ankles and a knee, but the worst pain I’ve experienced was the sustained lower abdomen throbbing of a near ruptured apendix when I was 14.
It had kept me up all night, completely unable to move without sending waves of pain throught my abdomen. My mother drove me to the hospital in the morning, via none too well kept Rte. 1 in Northern Maine. Every damn bump, pot hole and frost heave was like a sledge hammer to the stomach.
I wasn’t in the ER for more than 10 minutes when they whisked me to surgery. The doc said another hour or so and it would have been “POP”, appendix all over the place.
I got Tennis Toe on my big toe playing tennis two months ago. It’s still dark blue beneath it. I haven’t lost the nail yet, but I might. Keep your nails trimmed:
http://www.feetfixer.com/sponsors/feetfixer/common.html#ND
Blood Beneath The Nail
A very common result of active lifestyles is blood, or a hematoma, beneath the toenail. Hematomas are especially common among people who jog or play tennis, caused by the toes repeatedly rubbing against the shoe.
I got in a car accident my junior year. The car rolled over and my silly head tried to catch myself. (I was buckled, but still) I stuck my hand through the driver’s side window to brace against the ground. The car kept rolling, over my hand, levering my fingers backward. My fingers hyperextend so only my middle finger broke (it no longer hyperextends.) and I lost two nails, middle and thumb.
Yea. Hurts a lot. My middle fingernail is growing with a wave in it now and has been for the last two years. Really annoying. (That and the broken finger was set ‘straight’. My fingers tilt after the last knuckle, so now that one finger messes up how my whole hand fits together.)
I have had a broken sternum, and that was the worst so far. You can’t move much without it hurting, and sneezing is the ablsolute worst torture you can give yourself. You fight the sneeze, cause you know how much it will hurt, but the sneeze just gets worse ARRRGHHH! It sucked for about 6 weeks.
Montfort, would you say that the total removal was worth it? Did the nail grow back clean and normal?
I’ve had my left big ingrown toenail cut back twice. The first time, about 5 years ago, they removed about a third and killed the bed, but part of it grew back – icky and a pain to clip. The pain from the shot in the end of my toe was horrific – and I’ve had kidney stones.
Then this past summer, it started to get really irritated. I put off going to the doctor, ignoring Mr. Scarlett’s nudging, until one day when I whacked my sensitive toe into the side of our van, full force, while trying to climb in. I saw stars, planets, and several galaxies. This time the doc just trimmed it back and clipped away the infected skin – but I got the shot again as well. Hurt just as bad as I remembered.
This second doc recommended that I see the podiatrist and have it taken care of for good, but I feel too wussy. I’d do it, though, if it was reasonably certain that I wouldn’t have to go again. But my research indicates that there’s always a chance of recurrence.
What say you, Montfort and others who’ve had the whole nail removed? Are you happy with the results? Was it worth getting THE SHOT again?
I had that done about 6 months ago…it wasn’t all that bad. This time, I had the nail AND the nailbed removed. Many litres of blood, buckets of agony and a couple of stitches for good measure.
Where’s my Rum?
I was coming in from recess. It was hot that spring and I was wearing sandals. Just as I reached for the door (you know those big metal ones they have at every school) another student pushed her way out. The door scraped over my left foot, ripping the toenail out. Oddly there was no pain. I looked at it a moment and walked to my classroom. Halfway to class, my toe starts to bleed. I asked my teacher for some tissues to sop up the blood. She looks down and notices the gusher that was my toe and immediately sends me to the nurse’s office. I get to the nurse’s office, she hands me some gauze and calls my mom. THAT’S when the pain hits. The nurse comes in and finds one hurting, crying, scared little girl whimpering for her mommy (who thankfully was on the way). My mom took me home, dosed me up on Tylenol, and pampered me for the rest of the day.
Only other problem of the day was when mom took me to McDonalds as part of the pampering. I sat down while she ordered. Unfortunately when Mom sat down, she stepped on my toe!!! Ow, ow, ow!
I eventually forgave her.
No toe nail stories, but I did have to have several shots of novacaine IN MY EYE!
I have had a series of operations on my eye to correct lazy eye, and the last one was in 1995. The operation left a little bit of scar tissue in the extreme inside corner of my left eye. In order to remove it (as an outpatient procedure -don’t you love managed care) they laid me out on a table in the drs. office and draped my face except for my left eye. They then put these little clips on your eye to hold it open (you are unable to blink so they have to irrigate your eye for you - squirt squirt squirt, right in the eye). Then the dr. said “You may want to look as far left as possible for this.” He then approaches my eye with a hypodermic syringe and proceeds to give me 6 shots around the orbit of my eye AND I CAN"T LOOK AWAY! That fact, combined with the the sheer pain of having a needle in your eye, was the worst experience I believe I’ve ever had.
Cross my heart and hope to die
Stick a needle in my eye.
Yeah, I’d say it was. The nail grew back just fine, it’s nice and thick, too. I think my body’s teaching me a lesson about proper grooming, or something.
Fortunately, both times I’ve had nails removed it was in the winter, so I had a fully-regrown, formerly-ingrown (sorry, couldn’t resist) nail back by the time it got to sandal season in the summer.
When the pod told me he’d only remove part of the nail (the left third) this past time, I was surprised. I figured the whole nail would go, like it did the first time. It was really neat seeing the remainder of the nail with the sharp edge over the exposed part of the toe. The nail there grew back to look like the rest of the nail.
If you’re really curious, I can take pictures for you and e-mail them. I hope you’re not, though.
When I was in Grade Seven, I was running into my living room when THOCK. My baby toe caught a table. At first, I thought I had merely stubbed it. But then, my foot went numb. I took off my sock and was immediately shocked to discover my toe facing the wrong way. It was completly upside down. Turns out I had dislocated and broken it.
The freezing needles were audibly grinding against the broken edges of bone.
Ingrown toenail here. There’s nothing quite like having a ‘dead’ toe, and watching the Dr. slide (force) hemostats under the nail into the nail bed and then twist until the nail comes out. My toenail grew back all thick and gross. It’s still tender to this day, and that happened about 15 years ago.
I had a tooth pulled. It’d become infected, and a root canal was too expensive at the time. So out it came. I actually drove home. But when I got home… Oh the pain. I couldn’t move. I was sitting in front of a heater, in the summer, under a blanket. I couldn’t do anything but whimper and stare. I couldn’t have given you my name. I couldn’t feel anything but that empty socket. We finally got enough asprin down me to get to the prescription filled, and after 30 minutes I felt like new. And tired, like you do after all that pain.
