Well, I was putting new sheets on the bed because of that thread about why you sleep better on them (I tried to remember when I last washed these, and I think it was more like months than weeks), and out of nowhere I hit my hand on the headboard (really lightly!) in such a way that my thumbnail bent back about a quarter of the way down. And it hurt. so. bad. Oh my god did it hurt.
The nail didn’t tear, which I’ve never had happen before, and I can see the finger bleeding under the nail. Now, of course if something concern-worthy happens I’ll see the doctor; I just want to know if there’s anything that can be done for this sort of thing. Really, I know it’s an ultra-minor injury, but the pain is still pretty incredible, and then obviously there’s a cosmetic issue. Is there anything I can do now to make it better down the road in terms of gross fingernail appearance? Is there anything I definately shouldn’t do?
I am not a doctor, or a nurse, or a medical professional of any kind. Read this advice at your own risk.
When this has happened to me - I have very thick thumbnails - I have found the best thing I can do is to file off the nail as short as I can to keep it from catching on anything. You have done some minor trauma to the nail bed - as evidenced by the bleeding - and anytime you catch the nail on something it is going to hurt like fire. It won’t take long for it to resolve, but if you keep catching the nail it will reinjure the nail bed. By the time the nail grows back to cutting length it should be fine.
If the nail bed turns an ugly color, paint your nails. I know it’s a pain in the butt, but it can be less of a pain than everyone asking “what did you do to…”
When removing the head of a bank night depository to relieve a bag jam, the head clamp slipped and my hand position was delivered a double thumbnail backward fold. Words do not describe the feeling-the bank officer howled in witness. Bacitracin and tape sufficed for the moment. Both nails shuffed off, but damn it hurt for a week or so.
A hard blow on a nail can cause a blood blister beneath. I have drilled a tiny hole in the nail to relieve the pressure. This is a job that should be done by medical personnel. Possibility of infection, etc.
WebMD seems to be telling me the doctor might use a heated up paperclip to drain pooled blood. I’m not too sure about WebMD’s authenticity right now.
It’s okay today - hurts like a bastard if I use it, but the blood is mostly around the top rim and doesn’t seem to be causing the sort of problem that would require it to be drained. Just sucks that I have to work. And also when I went to pay for my lunch the corner of a $20 bill somehow slid between the nail and the flesh and it was screaming pain all over again - one must learn to be more careful!
Here’s a little hijack, but since someone else mentioned drilling a hole in the nail, I’ll go ahead and throw it out there.
When my dad was a young sailor, he hammered the hell out of his thumb one day. It formed a blood blister under the nail and started to swell a bit. So Dad went to sick call and asked what they could do about it. The Doc there (a Hospital Corpsman, actually, not a medical doctor), told him that a hole needed to be drilled in the nail to release the pressure. Dad declined this operation in rather strong language. The Doc told him, “OK. But you’ll be back tomorrow wishing you’d let me do it.”
Sure enough, the thumb started to swell badly and it really really hurt. Dad, being a stubborn cuss, didn’t go back to sick call the next day, but by the day after that, after a night spent in too much pain to sleep, he was ready. Went to sick call, and the Doc did the drilling. Dad said his thumb emitted a geyser of blood and puss that was interesting (and disgusting) to observe. He didn’t even loose the nail – it was a nasty black color until it grew out, though.
Sorry you have to work, Zsofia, your thumb does sound painful (although it doesn’t sound as if it will need to be drained, thank goodness). Will you have tomorrow off at least?
Well when I was a great deal younger I got blood blister under a finger nail, the doctor heated a ordnary sewing neddle red hot and burned throught the nail to drain the blood, went so quick and the reliefwas so dramitic that I didn’t notice the actual burning through.
I had the heated needle treatment once as a kid. My mother who is a nurse did it well before the build up got painful. It worked immediately, draining the nail bed. I don’t think that I lost the nail.
Recently I bent back my thumbnail and it tore straight across my thumb below the quick. It didn’t hurt a great deal but I was dreading cutting off all the torn nail when I remembered a conversation with a work mate about her artificial nails. So I grabbed a tube of superglue and put a dollop over the break in the nail and let it dry. I kept reapplying the super glue every few days until the break grew out past the quick. Then I trimmed it reall short. No dramas.
I’ve done this twice recently. And many times in the past.
My best luck is to clean the area, put on antibiotic, and to bandage the remaining nail tightly, cutting the white part down so it does not snag. One time the nail actually re-attached because I immediately applied pressure and kept it on for days, and got lucky. Other times, it hasn’t reattached, but it healed without any further drama.
Doctors call the blood beneath the nail a “subungal hematoma”. If there is a substantial collection of blood beneath the nail (with colour change), it is worth draining. If the blood is near the hangnail and has trickled out, there is nothing to drain. The hangnail will heal with time, I cut them short; sometimes I simply glue or stitch the nail back into place. I use a heated cautery iron to drain subungal hematomas, without anesthetic. The procedure takes under half a second. A sharp needle would also do the trick (and may heal more quickly than when using heat).
A few years ago I was throwing around an Aerobee when it landed in a tree. I tried to climb the tree, but the bark peeled off in loose chips. One of the chips slid right under my fingernail most of the way to the back. Yeah, that hurt like hell. I pulled out most of the wood and rinsed out the nailbed with water and Bactine, then kept a Bandaid on it for a few days. After that the nail was mostly separated except at the root, and the nailbed had healed and hardened into a new protonail. I started trimming the old nail back as much as I could, so for a while I had a really weird looking fingernail that was thinner and uneven on one part and had sort of a ridge on another. Eventually it returned to normal.