So, I dropped a cutting board on my big toe on Thursday night. Not even a heavy one, it was a small bamboo one. But there was immediate, blinding pain, really bad. And it didn't really fade as I expected, it got less, but kept throbbing with my heartbeat. I finished making dinner, ate, did computer stuff, went to bed. The next morning, it was significantly worse. My toenail looked entirely black and blue, and all the skin up to the knuckle was red and the slightest touch, like even brushing against the bedsheets, felt like someone poking it with a needle. All day the pain was crazy. I went to hang out with my friend at night, and he pointed out to me that my toenail was green... and it was. I got home late, driving hurt like fuck, just pressing the pedals.
Saturday morning I woke up, and my toe was a deep red color with a green nail. It hurt like crazy all day, but it would be quite a bit better when I soaked it in ice water (of course, it was numb). I had to check to see whether it was broken, because I hadn't dared try to bend it, but there was no pain pressing the bottom of my toe at all, and the pain was centered on my nail, and especially right below the cuticle. I started to wonder if the nail got cracked behind the cuticle, under the skin... it seemed like it must be infected, it hurt so bad, plus it was a little swollen. Then, after 2 days of being extremely careful... I stubbed the same damn toe. Hard. hard enough that it would have been sore if it hadn't been hurt to begin with. It was next level pain, holy shit guys. I barely even remember the period right afterwards, but it kicked everything up a notch, and my toe got more swollen, deeper red, and the pain went up substantially.
I started to seek advice from BL staff and others, and the consensus seemed to be that I was probably going to lose the toenail, and that I should poke or drill holes in it, because there was probably blood underneath creating pressure, which was causing most of the pain. I wasn't sure though, and didn't want to make it worse, nor did I have the courage to try poking or drilling a hole in my toenail. So at like 11pm, I booked an appointment at the urgent care for the morning.
This morning, it was as bad as ever, just throbbing with like a level 5 or 6 pain every heartbeat, and the slightest touch or pressure was awful. At this point, I was actually getting kind of used to the pain, but I was really glad I had booked the appointment. Of course, somehow my girlfriend was laying in bed, with every part of her body hurting terribly. She went off birth control 3 months ago, which she was on to try to help control her pre-menstrual pain, which was really bad because of endometriosis (or suspected endometriosis anyway, apparently it's very difficult to get an official diagnosis but her doctor diagnosed her with something similar and said it was very likely endometriosis). She's trying some naturopathic way of reverting to her natural state to try to control the hormones imbalance through herbs or some shit, anyway she's tried about everything so wanted to cross that off the list, too. The first two months she actually felt way better, but this month, it's gotten really bad.
Anyway, I mention it because she seemed to be hurting even worse than me, and I was basically on my own... I had thought she would be driving me to urgent care. So I iced my toe, and it felt 10 times better, and drove to urgent care. Even walking to my car was shitty, driving was interesting, I had to find the perfect angle and way of holding my foot to make it doable. I wore sandals with my right sandal (the hurt foot) half undone. Got to urgent care, and they did X-rays to make sure, and the doctor came in and said yeah, you have a hemotoma to your toe, it's just soft tissue damage, but you're almost for sure going to lose your toenail, but no break, and it doesn't seem infected (really?? it's bright red). He was like, I could pull it off... yeah, no thanks! So instead he did what people here suggested, and poked 4 holes in it. I had to convince him to, though, because he said in his experience, after 3 days it would already be dried blood and wouldn't accomplish anything. But he did it, and sure enough, a bunch of blood came out. The relief was immediate.
The rest of the day, it's ben so much better, I soaked it in warm epsom salt water, which was nice and soothing, apparently it softens the nail. Some fluid occasionally oozes from the holes, and I am using my "wound wash" tincture I made from foraged usnea and yarrow (which I use on everything and even really bad cuts and a cat scratch that left flaps of skin open have never once even turned pink, it's amazing stuff) after each soak.
A half hour or so ago it started hurting some again, but the throbbing with my heartbeat is finally gone.
What a crazy ordeal for such a stupid injury... moral of the story: be careful, because small, lightweight bamboo cutting boards are more dangerous than you think
I'm not overstating it when I say that it changed my life. Kinda funnelled my compulsive behaviours into something useful. Well, maybe not useful but not drugs at least...!
5280 feet in a mile, you forgot that one.
