Several weeks ago I was clearing away storm damage in the back yard. While tossing limbs in a brush pile, my wedding ring flew off. See, it was a size 9. It was rather tight, and there were days when my finger was getting a little numb. So I went to a jeweller and had it re-sized. Twice. But after a couple of months, my finger lost weight. I was constantly making sure it stayed on. Well, I didn’t bother wearing gloves when I was clearing the debris, and sure enough it finally did come off. I even bought a metal detector to look for it. No joy.
I went back to the jeweller and made sure to find my correct size. Nine. OK, I ordered a new ring. (Not from the jeweller, though. It would have cost more than twice as much as one from Amazon.) It arrived yesterday and was snug, but I could take it off. This morning I tried to take it off, and it was stuck. I knew I’d seen a trick to get stuck rings off, and a quick google brought up this page, which is the one I’d seen before. So to remove a stuck ring:
[ul][li]With your palm up, put some dental floss under the ring. I found a bobby pin to help me pull the floss through.[/li][li]Wind the long end of the floss around your finger, compressing the swollen tissue. Secure the end under the last loop of floss.[/li][li]Go back to the short end, the end in your palm, and unwind the floss to push the ring over the tight spot.[/ul][/li]
Worked like a charm.
I always found soap or lotion did the trick for me. It was slippery enough that the ring slid right past the finger fatness.
I lost my first wedding ring when I was pregnant. My hands were swollen, so I wore it as a pinky ring, which worked fine till I was yanking up some big weeds in the yard and flinging them away from the garden beds. For all I know the ring is still in that yard… Moral of the story - don’t do yard work if you’re married!
I tried 'em all, and nothing worked. But I’d gained a lot of weight during what turned into an unhappy marriage. Eventually, I found a friendly paramedic who cut it off for me with their nifty ring cutter.
Yikes. I take my wedding ring off for just about any manual labor. Leaving it on puts you at risk for a “degloving” injury, in which the ring catches on something and peels your finger’s skin off like a latex glove (in extreme cases it can just rip your finger clean off do a Google-Images search at your own peril). It’s common enough with rings that that particular type is called a ring avulsion Jimmy Fallon damn near lost a finger that way.
Put a snap-bolt or mini-carabiner on your keyring, and store your wedding ring there when you’re doing yard work or machine work; your finger will thank you for it.
My knuckles are about 3 sizes too big for the rest of my hands, so I sized my ring to just barely squeeze over the knuckles after it’s been popped.
I went through my wedding ceremony with a glob of hand lotion on my finger, cracked my knuckles during the ceremony, and my wife had to push to get that thing on.
What did I learn from this thread? That you can get wedding rings from Amazon. I lost my ring when I had a surgical procedure and had to remove it. Now I just have to figure out what size to order. I’m guessing the magic of the Internet will help with that.
There’s no way we could replace my wife’s ring should she lose it. I don’t know if it’s a custom design, but it was my mom’s from her 2nd husband, and is from the '80s.
I’ve heard the novelty of titanium and tungsten wedding rings can be quite a problem if they get stuck on the finger, requiring pretty powerful tools to cut them off. Does anyone know if the skin will grow back if the skin of a finger is degloved? Is there some kind of special skin graft they do?
If it’s fully degloved, extensive surgical intervention is needed. They may be able to repair the injury by using the degloved tissue to cover the area (this is ideal), or they may need skin or muscle flaps, or both, taken from elsewhere on the body. Cool stuff. I mean, if it’s happening to someone else…
There’s a pretty comprehensive article on degloving and avulsion injuries from the Institute for Hand and Reconstructive Microsurgery in India available through the National Institute of Health’s website which answers these questions. It has thumbnail pictures that you can expand if you have the stomach for it.
In a nutshell, they try to repair the existing flesh in-place. Re-attach/re-route blood vessels and nerves. Even hollow out the stripped flesh and vacuum seal/tightly bind it. If that’s not possible they decide if it’s better to amputate or try to repair. If they go for a repair they can use skin from several locations with similar pliability, durability, nerve, and bloodflow characteristics. The groin is first choice, with a few other possibilities as well. The technique is usually a flap instead of what most people think of as a graft, meaning they cut the skin mostly away from the body, but leave the bloodflow intact. Then you attach the damaged hand to the groin for a while. Basically you lift up a section of the skin of the groin, being careful not to damage the blood vessels, then wrap that skin around the degloved finger. Now you have living, healthy skin(from the groin) that is trying to re-attach itself to the musculature underneath, and living, healthy musculature(from the hand) which is trying to re-attach itself to the skin above. It’s a good match and with some nerve work you can soon have the bloodflow from the hand supplant the bloodflow from the groin and then you can remove the hand from the groin and let the groin heal and begin to work on flexibility and rehabilitation of the hand.
A German study in 2010 reported the results from 14 such surgeries over a three year period and said all resulted in patients who were fully satisfied with the results, both aesthetically and functionally.
Titanium is harder to cut than the usual precious metals. Instead of a simple shear, you’re likely to need a die grinder. You have to go slow (as seen in the video) to avoid heat buildup that can burn your finger. I suppose you could probably go faster if someone were holding an ice cube against the ring while it was being cut. Once you notch it so it’s no longer a contiguous ring, you can hold the far side with pliers and jam a screwdriver in the gap to pry it open.
My last two wedding rings came from Amazon. The original ring I got at the actual wedding was white gold and was scratched beyond belief after just a couple years. So, at the 5-year anniversary, I got a tungsten carbide ring with a carbon fiber inlay. The inlay got discolored after a couple of years, so on the 10-year anniversary, I traded it for this tungsten carbide ring. Twenty bucks, three years without a scratch on it.
These days a lot of active people who want to wear a wedding ring are going silicone. The first maker I was aware of is Qalo. Silicone seems much less likely to cause an injury like ring avulsion.
I switched to silicone a few years ago after almost getting my hand stuck while working on my tractor. No worries about getting stuck or scratching anything I’m working on. Non conducting as well which could be important in some occupations.
Now I just have to figure out what size to order. I’m guessing the magic of the Internet will help with that. 