24 thoughts on “Removing A Splinter Non-Surgically”
Thumbs up!
Bob Clark
This is an age old solution for a splinter you CAN see, and it works quite well. However, if you want to go old Granny style and you don’t have any epsom salts, snip a really small piece of bacon and put it on the splinter, put the band-aid over it. Same deal, in a day or two, you can pull it. Granny would most likely have used salt pork or fat back, most of us have bacon now.
If the splinter CANNOT be seen, go see a doctor.
A few years ago I got a sizable splinter from a 4 x 4 in my left thumb. It was stuck deep enough that at first I thought I’d just cut myself, it just looked like a cut. In a weeks time it was swollen, so sore it throbbed and when my doctor sent me for a x-ray, the ‘splinter’ was almost touching the bone and about a 16th of an inch below the skin.
It took two shots of numb-it juice and a scalpel to extract it.
I tell this story because several of the people in the Drs office said I should have just waited for it to fester, THEN I could pull it out myself. The newly minted PA who had done the work was appalled at that old redneck method and it should NEVER be used.
The obvious solution to this is what I didn’t do that day, that I normally do. Wear work gloves. A $6 pair of decent cow hide gloves CAN save a nasty cut or even a finger.
I own several.
I’d rather not mess around with raw meat. Lots of genuine toxin producing beasties in there. The cold and the salt, I expect, are what provide whatever benefit there. Might as well apply them directly without the porcine flesh intermediary.
Which is why Granny used salt pork.
I wish she had a better explanation for why it worked than
“Hi Amy, magnesium sulfate (epsom salt) draws toxins out of the skin.”
Always a great, all-purpose explanation – those nasty “toxins”, whatever they are.
I’d guess that maybe it lessens inflammation and swelling, allowing the sliver to be pushed out by the pressure of new cell growth. Will have to try next time I get a really bad one. I have effectively had to perform self-surgery to remove them in the past, and that’s never fun.
One also might wonder about how a knowingly out-of-network practitioner who is a “holistic” practitioner can possibly cost $500 just to examine and remove a thorn. If they’re “holistic”, and use no complicated drugs or anesthetics, how can it possibly be that expensive? And, if the only reason it costs $500 is because it’s “out-of-network”, then why bother submitting it to insurance? Ask for the cash price, it’s usually cheaper.
I, too, marveled at the “toxin removal” explanation and its obvious hokum, but that paled in comparison to the idea that someone seemed more than willing to risk losing a digit and risk massive infection because they refused to submit to the marvels of modern medicine, which are proven and effective.
Well, other than those evil mind-controlling tetanus shots to which they try to get everyone to submit…
Yeah, the comments there were a pit of fail.
One of the quackscommenters over there explained it, Bart, it’s homeopathymagic! His suggestion was taking sulphur, presumably orally.
Will definitely give the epsom salts a try even though I’d like to know more about the mechanism, but I’ll join the pile-on that surrounds the comments. As soon as they started bringing up ‘c’ as a medicinal measurement, my eyes glazed over. The toxin argument for how it worked was a yellow flag.
If they think that health care is expensive in the US now, just wait and see how expensive it is after that jackass gets tetanus…….Just the funeral can cost thousands. The treatments can cost upwards of a million.
I’ve seen and treated tetanus cases, here in the US, where there is no excuse for them, and in other countries, where I try to inoculate people against common, preventable diseases.
And epsom salt works by causing an osmotic shift in fluid in the cells….making it easier to get the splinter by reducing the size of the individual cells. Not magic, not homeopathy (the definitions of which are hilarious), just science. Real science.
Thank you! Amazing stuff, that science.
I may have an explanation of why the salt worked…while not a splinter, I suffered several years ago from Plantar’s warts on the soles of my feet. My doctor said to soak my feet nightly in the hottest epsom salt water that I could stand and leave them there until the water was cold. he explained that the hot salty water accelerated skin cell development in the lower layers of the epidermis to the point that new skin was being produced faster than the wart could grow deeper. Sure enough, after about five days I could literally peel the warts away painlessly with tweezers.
Just pee on your feet in the shower.
I tried to post previously but something didn’t seem to work quite right. At any rate, I may have an explanation why the salts worked. Years ago I suffered from plantar’s warts on the soles of my feet, and the doctor told me to soak my feet nightly in the hottest epsom salt water I could stand and leave them there until the water became cold. he explained that the hot salt water accelerated the growth of skin cells in my epidermis faster than the wart could burrow deeper. Sure enough, after about five days of nightly soakings, I was able to simply peel away the warts painlessly with tweezers.
sigh.
I live in the desert, and we get microscopic cactus needles whenever we do any yard work. They work themselves right through leather gloves. I’ve found that tape (gaffers, duct, scotch or even a bandaid if that is all you have) works pretty. Well, as long as you don’t play with it too much and break off the part that is still above the skin. Just remember to pull it off quickly.
Speaking of tape, would taped and/or rubber-coated gloves help prevent the micro-needles from penetrating the glove?
That’s an honest question, as it’s not something that I’ve ever had to deal with here in the Midwest.
No. Rubber just makes your hands hot.
There are three basic rules to desert living.
1: Water is Life
I don’t have grass in my yard and restaurants will not give you water unless you ask. Oddly it is against the law for them to just give you water (seen as a waste if not drunk) but it is also against the law to benign you water if you ask.
2: Shun the Sun
While waiting to cross the street, stand in the shadow of the stop light poll. Better yet don’t be outside walking during the daylight hours. Which brings up the point that daylight savings is a stupid (bordering on suicidal) idea.
3: Don’t touch ANYTHING
If it doesn’t have needles, it will burn or bite you. I’ve gotten second degree burns from picking up a socket wrench that was left in the sun for 10 minutes. Every plant has some form of thorn and even the sweet little honey bees are Africanized.
Luckily I only do yard work about twice a year. Stuff grows pretty slow in the desert. I generally try to never touch a cactus with anything but steel (shovel or pitchfork). The only person I’ve seen that violates these laws is my mother-in-law. When she makes Nopales, she will go out back, hack off a pad or two from a prickly pear with a kitchen knife. She then scrapes off the needles, chops them up, boils the pieces, and make a mean salsa all without every getting stuck. I’ve asked her how she does it but she just shrugs and answers in Spanish something like, “Don’t let them touch you.”
Home remedy aside, I was struck by the comment that the guy didn’t want to be “harassed” about getting a tetanus shot. Tetanus is horrible and then you (probably) die: Prolonged muscular action causes sudden, powerful, and painful contractions of muscle groups. These episodes can cause fractures and muscle tears. Other symptoms include drooling, excessive sweating, fever, hand or foot spasms, irritability, swallowing difficulty, uncontrolled urination or defecation and oh yeah, lockjaw.
It is typically caused by precisely the kind of wound this guy experienced: a deep puncture from something in an anaerobic environment (like the garden he was working in).
Prevention is simple: get a tetanus shot (preferably before the injury. The shot is good for ten years). There is no cure for tetanus, and you don’t know you’ve contracted it untill the symptoms appear and then it’s too late.
Bill S., don’t you listen to Jenny McCarthy? Immunizations are the cause of Autism, the way the Government controls our minds, and the root of all evil in the world. Modern medicine is the reason we have cancer. Etc.
Note that homeopathy is part of what accelerated the death of the late Steve Jobs. He admitted as much himself when he finally gave up “holistic” treatments and finally saw a g-d doctor for his pancreatic cancer. And, while they were able to slow it down, it was still too late to cure him and extend his life beyond another year or so.
Which only really goes to show that smart people do dumb things sometimes, too, but you can tell the smart ones from the dumb ones because the smart ones usually admit when they do something stupid and regret it later. The dumb ones just keep blaming everyone else.
Uncontrolled defecation? I wonder if I have a mild form of tetanus as i am often a victum of uncontrolled flatulence
Did you eat the fish or steak?
Could be cheap beer? Too much beer? Not ENOUGH beer?!
[…wait..it’s not Friday…why do I want a beer so badly?]
Thumbs up!
Bob Clark
This is an age old solution for a splinter you CAN see, and it works quite well. However, if you want to go old Granny style and you don’t have any epsom salts, snip a really small piece of bacon and put it on the splinter, put the band-aid over it. Same deal, in a day or two, you can pull it. Granny would most likely have used salt pork or fat back, most of us have bacon now.
If the splinter CANNOT be seen, go see a doctor.
A few years ago I got a sizable splinter from a 4 x 4 in my left thumb. It was stuck deep enough that at first I thought I’d just cut myself, it just looked like a cut. In a weeks time it was swollen, so sore it throbbed and when my doctor sent me for a x-ray, the ‘splinter’ was almost touching the bone and about a 16th of an inch below the skin.
It took two shots of numb-it juice and a scalpel to extract it.
I tell this story because several of the people in the Drs office said I should have just waited for it to fester, THEN I could pull it out myself. The newly minted PA who had done the work was appalled at that old redneck method and it should NEVER be used.
The obvious solution to this is what I didn’t do that day, that I normally do. Wear work gloves. A $6 pair of decent cow hide gloves CAN save a nasty cut or even a finger.
I own several.
I’d rather not mess around with raw meat. Lots of genuine toxin producing beasties in there. The cold and the salt, I expect, are what provide whatever benefit there. Might as well apply them directly without the porcine flesh intermediary.
Which is why Granny used salt pork.
I wish she had a better explanation for why it worked than
One also might wonder about how a knowingly out-of-network practitioner who is a “holistic” practitioner can possibly cost $500 just to examine and remove a thorn. If they’re “holistic”, and use no complicated drugs or anesthetics, how can it possibly be that expensive? And, if the only reason it costs $500 is because it’s “out-of-network”, then why bother submitting it to insurance? Ask for the cash price, it’s usually cheaper.
I, too, marveled at the “toxin removal” explanation and its obvious hokum, but that paled in comparison to the idea that someone seemed more than willing to risk losing a digit and risk massive infection because they refused to submit to the marvels of modern medicine, which are proven and effective.
Well, other than those evil mind-controlling tetanus shots to which they try to get everyone to submit…
Yeah, the comments there were a pit of fail.
One of the
quackscommenters over there explained it, Bart, it’shomeopathymagic! His suggestion was taking sulphur, presumably orally.Will definitely give the epsom salts a try even though I’d like to know more about the mechanism, but I’ll join the pile-on that surrounds the comments. As soon as they started bringing up ‘c’ as a medicinal measurement, my eyes glazed over. The toxin argument for how it worked was a yellow flag.
If they think that health care is expensive in the US now, just wait and see how expensive it is after that jackass gets tetanus…….Just the funeral can cost thousands. The treatments can cost upwards of a million.
I’ve seen and treated tetanus cases, here in the US, where there is no excuse for them, and in other countries, where I try to inoculate people against common, preventable diseases.
And epsom salt works by causing an osmotic shift in fluid in the cells….making it easier to get the splinter by reducing the size of the individual cells. Not magic, not homeopathy (the definitions of which are hilarious), just science. Real science.
Thank you! Amazing stuff, that science.
I may have an explanation of why the salt worked…while not a splinter, I suffered several years ago from Plantar’s warts on the soles of my feet. My doctor said to soak my feet nightly in the hottest epsom salt water that I could stand and leave them there until the water was cold. he explained that the hot salty water accelerated skin cell development in the lower layers of the epidermis to the point that new skin was being produced faster than the wart could grow deeper. Sure enough, after about five days I could literally peel the warts away painlessly with tweezers.
Just pee on your feet in the shower.
I tried to post previously but something didn’t seem to work quite right. At any rate, I may have an explanation why the salts worked. Years ago I suffered from plantar’s warts on the soles of my feet, and the doctor told me to soak my feet nightly in the hottest epsom salt water I could stand and leave them there until the water became cold. he explained that the hot salt water accelerated the growth of skin cells in my epidermis faster than the wart could burrow deeper. Sure enough, after about five days of nightly soakings, I was able to simply peel away the warts painlessly with tweezers.
sigh.
I live in the desert, and we get microscopic cactus needles whenever we do any yard work. They work themselves right through leather gloves. I’ve found that tape (gaffers, duct, scotch or even a bandaid if that is all you have) works pretty. Well, as long as you don’t play with it too much and break off the part that is still above the skin. Just remember to pull it off quickly.
Speaking of tape, would taped and/or rubber-coated gloves help prevent the micro-needles from penetrating the glove?
That’s an honest question, as it’s not something that I’ve ever had to deal with here in the Midwest.
No. Rubber just makes your hands hot.
There are three basic rules to desert living.
1: Water is Life
I don’t have grass in my yard and restaurants will not give you water unless you ask. Oddly it is against the law for them to just give you water (seen as a waste if not drunk) but it is also against the law to benign you water if you ask.
2: Shun the Sun
While waiting to cross the street, stand in the shadow of the stop light poll. Better yet don’t be outside walking during the daylight hours. Which brings up the point that daylight savings is a stupid (bordering on suicidal) idea.
3: Don’t touch ANYTHING
If it doesn’t have needles, it will burn or bite you. I’ve gotten second degree burns from picking up a socket wrench that was left in the sun for 10 minutes. Every plant has some form of thorn and even the sweet little honey bees are Africanized.
Luckily I only do yard work about twice a year. Stuff grows pretty slow in the desert. I generally try to never touch a cactus with anything but steel (shovel or pitchfork). The only person I’ve seen that violates these laws is my mother-in-law. When she makes Nopales, she will go out back, hack off a pad or two from a prickly pear with a kitchen knife. She then scrapes off the needles, chops them up, boils the pieces, and make a mean salsa all without every getting stuck. I’ve asked her how she does it but she just shrugs and answers in Spanish something like, “Don’t let them touch you.”
Home remedy aside, I was struck by the comment that the guy didn’t want to be “harassed” about getting a tetanus shot. Tetanus is horrible and then you (probably) die: Prolonged muscular action causes sudden, powerful, and painful contractions of muscle groups. These episodes can cause fractures and muscle tears. Other symptoms include drooling, excessive sweating, fever, hand or foot spasms, irritability, swallowing difficulty, uncontrolled urination or defecation and oh yeah, lockjaw.
It is typically caused by precisely the kind of wound this guy experienced: a deep puncture from something in an anaerobic environment (like the garden he was working in).
Prevention is simple: get a tetanus shot (preferably before the injury. The shot is good for ten years). There is no cure for tetanus, and you don’t know you’ve contracted it untill the symptoms appear and then it’s too late.
Bill S., don’t you listen to Jenny McCarthy? Immunizations are the cause of Autism, the way the Government controls our minds, and the root of all evil in the world. Modern medicine is the reason we have cancer. Etc.
Note that homeopathy is part of what accelerated the death of the late Steve Jobs. He admitted as much himself when he finally gave up “holistic” treatments and finally saw a g-d doctor for his pancreatic cancer. And, while they were able to slow it down, it was still too late to cure him and extend his life beyond another year or so.
Which only really goes to show that smart people do dumb things sometimes, too, but you can tell the smart ones from the dumb ones because the smart ones usually admit when they do something stupid and regret it later. The dumb ones just keep blaming everyone else.
Uncontrolled defecation? I wonder if I have a mild form of tetanus as i am often a victum of uncontrolled flatulence
Did you eat the fish or steak?
Could be cheap beer? Too much beer? Not ENOUGH beer?!
[…wait..it’s not Friday…why do I want a beer so badly?]