Watch out for those splinters

Sorry to hear that your tarsal was terminal. I could not even begin to guess how many splinters I have had in my 60+ years. Most of the time I can get them out with a pair of tweezers, however the splinters that would not be defeated by the tweezers always seem to fester up after a couple of days and pop right out. Hope I never have to go through what you had to. Hope your health insurance covers most of it.

-- Each and Every step of any project should be considered your masterpiece if you want the finished product to reflect the quality of your work. Greg Little

I had something simular happen to me but not as extreme.. my splinter got lost in the side of my index finger right around the first knuckle.. after about a year.. I was fooling around with the little lump that was there and was squeezing and trying to coax whatever it was to the surface.. and out popped a small sliver of red oak that was imbedded there for well over a year.. contrary to what people think..they don’t just dissolve and float away..gotta dig em out..

-- Randall Child

Wow…...time release, self inflicted torture…....! That had to hurt…...get well so you can git to makin’ some new splinters.

-- Doug, New Mexico.......the only stupid question is one that is never asked!........don't fix it, if it ain't broke!

Hey Tim,
Been there with that lot and still got the dam huge scar.

-- I will just keep doing it till I get it right.

Just goes to show you how something tiny can have such a huge impact

silver lining: all will be well in a few days.

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Glad everything is OK and in a few days you should be back good as new!

-- John @ Myrtle Beach

I’ve had a similar but smaller experience to yours. This is why on big splinters I get a clean and sanitized razor knife and cut to make sure its all out. I agree splinters do not dissolve away as is rumored.

I guess there aren’t many concert pianists who want to be woodworkers. Glad to hear you are on the mend. Sometimes LJ is more exciting than ER.

-- Mike, American in Norway

I have had a lot of splinters, but i think the ones that bother me the most are the ones you get from birch lumber or plywood. It reacts with something in my body and within a couple of hours i will have very severe sore spot and what appears to be an infection.

-- Lumberdog.. Morley, Michigan

Add me to the list of those with the dormant splinter doing an encore. The skin healed over on mine, but it was infected underneath, and started to swell and hurt. When the pain got bad enough, I gritted my teeth and squeezed it like a zit, and the last little piece of splinter popped out along with the pus. The feeling of relief was immediate.

-- Measure twice, then try to figure out which one was right.

I have a great flourescent light with built in magnifier mounted on one of my benches. Originally for soldering small electronic devices and projects. I don’t do much of that these days. Although my Woodcraft remote for my Delta Dust Collector would not work out of the box, and with some testing, I found a cold solder joint and fixed it, so I didn’t have to send it back.

So, my magnifying light, and my very old Xacto pen knife, which I still have new blades for, and a good tweezers, have become the basis of a home surgical suite. Most cases involve splinters, mostly my own, so I have to operate left handed as well as right. On occasion my wife becomes the patient. She is a real weenie, so it has to be bad before she will submit to my home surgery without anesthesia. My first experience with this rough and ready surgery was about age 14, when staying at a friend’s cabin (his father was my physician), I displayed a splinterized finger to my doctor out on the dock, and he quickly pulled out his pocket knife and dug it out, pronounced it as fixed.

The moral of this story. Do get those splinters out early on. They don’t dissolve, they frequently fester (pus), and a foreign body granuloma (the body reacting to and walling off a foreign object) will eventually result, if an abcess large enough to expel them doesn’t happen.

You probably had a foreign body granuloma, Tim.

Recommended tools:

First, as we all know, trying to work them to the surface from the backside with a finger nail usually works.

Good lighting, magnification helps, something sharp that can be sterilized or thrown away, and a quality tweezers, women know where to get these. I use a little alcohol or a brief trip through the flame on our gas stove for my pen knife. Sewing needles are OK, they actually cause more damage than a small knife, however. I learned most of this from my parents when I was a kid.

If it is deep, or breaks off, and you can’t get it out, a trip to your friendly physician is in order.

Moral of story – get them splinters out early….......

-- Jim, Anchorage Alaska

Yeah, mostly splinters come out easily enough, though the ones with barbs hurt like hell in the process. This one though must have broken at the tip, or maybe even just pushed a tiny lump in like a nailset.

Happily, being in Canada, I don’t have to worry too much about health insurance since it’s just part of what you get for the basic subscription to being a resident. I just turned up at the appointed time, explained why I was there, gave some basic info to the registration lady and got to sit for ten minutes while the surgeon checked the lump and got tools. (nice tools by the way, all shiny and techie-looking)

Now, in the cold grey light of a wet morning I have to say the pain is quite spectacular. I’ve broken various bones, been shot at, fallen from the top of a 70ft tree, crashed motorcycles, had my heart broken and this is right up there. I guess there is such a high density of nerve endings in the area it is inevitable. A well, it’ll all be healed in a day or two I hope!

And definitely, the moral is as Jim says above.

and one additional point…..

Some of the wood we used is from barns, and may or may not have some recent horse manure on it, a prime source of tetanus, and tetanus spores live forever, and seem indestructible.

SO KEEP YOUR TETANUS VACCINATION UP TO DATE

.............they generally last about 10 years.

-- Jim, Anchorage Alaska

A couple notes to Jim;

Isn’t a pearl just a foreign body granuloma?

As for the tetanus vaccination, when my table saw bit my thumb a month or so ago, the doctor said not to trust the tetanus shot to really be effective for mor than about three years.

By the way, you’d be surprised how many TINY splinters a table saw blade can leave in your thumb! Antibiotics for nearly a month!

-- Doug, Bakersfield, CA - I measured twice, cut it twice, and it is still too short!

Doug,

I think our memory thinks 10 years is only three, but 10 years is the stated frequency for boosters. Just quoting the authorities, and that is not me. If you can’t remember, get a booster, it won’t hurt.

Re the pearl, that is a good analogy. The organism protecting itself from a foreign object with a protective coat. A little different in our tissues, however, the oyster is configured a little more loosely.

Yikes, I don’t advise any saw blades in the thumb, definitely to be avoided.

-- Jim, Anchorage Alaska

Hey there Tim,

Been there, Done that, Bought the ‘T-shirt’, Hated the Movie, Loved the Book!

I’ve gone through a couple of those iin years gone by. Each one seemed to have a mind (or limp) of it’s own. Seems like the worst ones come from Maple and Walnut, where as the pine seemed to be nothing at all.
Anyone else have a similar experience.

Good luck Tim and God Bless
MikeA

P.S. Jim is right, 10 years for tetanus.

-- Measure it with a micrometer - Mark it with a piece of chalk - Cut it with an Axe

Sorry to hear about your finger. Sounds like you’ll have to open that bottle of spirits with one hand for awhile.

I love seeing the fear in my families’ eyes when they tell me they have a splinter or a thorn and I pull out the utility knife for surgery. Don’t know why their trust seems to slip away so quickly! I was a carpenter in residential construction for 20 years and as far as I’m concerned that is the only tool for the job. What’s great is they have the little fold up utility knives now so it is not so intimidating. LOL There is nothing worse than someone pulling out a needle to try and dig out a splinter; it still makes me cringe.

-- Fred.... Poconos, PA ---- Chairwright in the making ----

ouch

-- Jim from Heirloom Woodshop Southern Oregon

Anyone ever heard of Ichthammol ointment – being used to draw splinters out. The ointment is a drawing salve. There is quite a discussion of this on Sawmill Creek forum.

Jim

Did the DR. give you the splinter so you could design and build a project to keep it in memoriam.

Sorry for the source of your pain. Had many splinters but never got one that went that far. I find that metal splinters are worse than wood ones.

-- What happens in the workshop stays in the workshop. No wait that doesn't sound right. Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †

Even worse than metal splinters are glass splinters that are acquired when working with fiber optics. They are so small you can’t see them and also don’t show up on xrays.

Jim

Wow, looks like tales of splinters are hot topic!

Mine is healing ok I’m pleased to say. Still tingles very oddly and the darndest things cause it to make me shriek, but it will probably be ok in a week or two.

Now, the nastiest splintering problem I recall hearing about was early plexiglass canopies on jets. Apparently splinters of that don’t get rejected, particularly from eyes. Which is, apparently, how they found a way to make implantable lenses.