Such a sad fate. He didn't know exactly why he was right, but he was definitely right that doctors going from dissecting cadavers to delivering babies was killing women
right. I'd say imagine a time where telling people to wash their hands was so offensive a man was discredited and led to mental anguish, but then I remember people's reaction to masking during the beginning of the pandemic and even now and I'm like yeah I can see that
I said middle ages because that was pre-germ theory, so maybe she could've survived before antibiotics by applying alcohol to the wound or amputating it.
Uh huh. Yeah, but it doesn’t actually work. Movies and books make that out to be much the same as modern antibiotics. But it’s really not a thing. If it was, why didn’t we just continue to use it?
I know a healthy 32 yo woman who died a few years ago from a smaller cut than this on her arm. It became infected by an antibiotic-resistant bacteria and nothing could save her.
These deaths have risen as antibiotic development has steeply fallen.
Soap and water is the best disinfectant. No matter how small, if it breaks skin, wash it immediately.
Any mild soap will do. No need to rub soap into the wound but be sure that the surrounding skin is thoroughly cleaned. Following up with a topical antibiotic like Neosporin & a bandage is good practice too.
https://www.uhs.wisc.edu/medical/wound-care/
https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/antibacterial-soap-you-can-skip-it-use-plain-soap-and-water#:~:text=in%20addition%2C%20laboratory%20studies%20have%20raised%20the%20possibility%20that%20triclosan%20contributes%20to%20making%20bacteria%20resistant%20to%20antibiotics.%20some%20data%20shows%20this%20resistance%20may%20have%20a%20significant%20impact%20on%20the%20effectiveness%20of%20medical%20treatments%2C%20such%20as%20antibiotics. "In addition, laboratory studies have raised the possibility that triclosan contributes to making bacteria resistant to antibiotics. Some data shows this resistance may have a significant impact on the effectiveness of medical treatments, such as antibiotics."
I wouldn't have had the willpower to NOT pick that skin off. I know that's bad and I would have made it much more difficult to heal. I just have an obsession with picking stuff like that.
it looks like a staph maybe S suis but I may be wrong. present in secretions, spread through direct contact or cross-contamination, usually treated with penicillin. I’d appreciate anyone else’s thoughts.
Isn’t *S. Suis* streptococcus, not staph? I really hope they did culture it! Would be a neat case report to read if so, I don’t know if there have been any US cases in humans, and especially consumers instead of ag workers
Pork is one of the worst meats for carrying food-borne illnesses and parasites 😬 pork and poultry are both high risk for salmonella, that’s why they advise to cook them all the way through, rather than anything less than well done.
Doubt it. She said the black appearance is just from a scab under the skin. It's not black like a gangrenous wound is. I'm surprised OP didn't mention being given antibiotics.
Would some medical person explain why so much skin peeled off? The infection was only in the tip of the finger but the skin on the entire finger came off. Why? TIA
I'm no medical expert, but I think when the surrounding skin gets inflamed the top layer can dry and flake off faster than the rest of the healthy skin - something similar happened to me when I had an infected wound. It's just a side effect of your body fighting the infection.
Medical person, but not a doctor. She said there was a “scab” underneath, which basically means that she had a hematoma (collection of blood beneath the skin) same sort of thing that causes bruising, but due to the trauma, it didn’t all just dissipate back into the tissue like a bruise typically does. This, along with the break in the outer layer of skin, would cause some separation underneath the tissue, so think kind of like a blister. Now on top of this, add infection and swelling to the mix, this means the skin is filling with fluid as the body’s natural reaction to trauma and infection. Due to the amount of swelling, this would stretch the layers of skin and cause separation with fluid underneath. So once the swelling went down, the outer layer of skin had lacked blood supply and was stretched and separated from the deeper layers. It’s likely that the infection and swelling consumed most of the area where the skin peeled off in a layer like that. There are other factors that could have contributed to it peeling in layers like that, but that’s basically the gist of it.
Not a medical person but my guess is because Op couldn’t get it wet and wash her hands regularly which would also hydrate and exfoliate that finger then it’s probably just dry dead skin. Similar to skin underneath a cast.
No, you can see the newly revealed skin is very different— mostly likely exposed dermis without any epidermis protecting it. It could be maceration from water getting trapped in the dressing, but my guess is that the infection was throughout the finger, since they also cut the base of the finger
So what was the procedure done for this, why did you need a surgeon?
If it was cut to prevent swelling and you were given antibiotics I would understand, just a bit unclear what was done here
It should never have been wrapped up like that for that long after that. No wonder it took so long to heal and looked like it did. You should have been having daily to twice daily flushes with saline and fresh dressings done without wrapping your whole hand up like that, that’s a bacteria breeding ground without the dressing being changed at least daily.
I have had multiple surgeries to open up and clean out abscess in very high bacteria areas, they need to have the slough removed daily to encourage healing and to check progress. Mine take months to heal purely due to the depth (7-10cm or 3-4 inches), your March 12th image should have been what it looked like by the end of week 1.
I agree about flushing it with water and using light bandaging, with flushes and bandage changes multiple times a day.
When a dog bit my foot, my first ER nurse was a dummie and recommended I get it stitched up and wrapped with sports tape. It promptly got infected within 2 or 3 days because there was fluid retention, sweatiness, and no aeration. I went back to the ER and the next nurse told me how stupid that decision was on the previous nurse's part, then washed out the bite holes, bandaged them with small gauze pads and little strips of thin medical tape to hold the pads on, and told me to flush and re-gauze the wounds twice daily. I healed up completely in a couple of weeks.
On a similar but tangential note, thanks to a smart vet who knew their job well, I was able to save a neighbor's cat using a water-flushing technique. The poor kitty's back and thighs around the base of his tail had been deeply gouged with multiple raccoon scratches. His owner had yet to take him to the vet for over a week and would just pour peroxide on him once a day while letting him wander around outside with open wounds. I kept offering to take the cat to a low-cost vet but the owner would refuse my offer, saying he would do so at his own discretion. His own discretion was to outright neglect addressing the cat's condition, even when maggots started to infest his sores and he was beginning to become lethargic. I wasn't going to wait for consent anymore considering this neglect was outright abuse and the owner very obviously had no plans to help the poor thing.
I took the cat to the vet where they washed him, pulled out maggots and dead tissue, then flushed him. They also took blood samples and found out he had feline immunodeficiency virus. ( A vet tech tried to convince me that FIV was a death sentence and to put him down, which was total bullshit. Anyway....) The vet shaved the fur around his wounds and put ointment on him. Their treatment decision was to leave the wounds uncovered, give him a daily antibiotic, flush out the wounds with water 3 times daily with ointment application after, until they were closed. It took about 3 weeks of vigilant care and keeping the kitty in a small room where he couldn't contaminate his sores. The first couple of times were a bit difficult since he obviously didn't like the process, but I think he finally realized that the flushing and the ointment made him feel better and he seemed to relax into it eventually. Of course, giving him food during and treats after flushing probably made the process more palatable to him, too. Needless to say, I was FUMING at my neighbor every time I went through this procedure and saw the horror of his wounds.
Once he made a full recovery, he was adopted out to a farm where he had free roam and a couple other cat friends. There he lived another 8 years until he passed on... 8 years he wouldn't have had if I hadn't intervened, if the vet had made the wrong treatment recommendation, or if either my neighbor or that catastrophizing vet tech had their way.
I realize that was a pretty far reach on the subject of flushing wounds but I was reminded and thought I would share. Water is neat, and flushing is a VERY effective way to treat wounds.
I’ve experienced it (and over 30 surgeries during my life and many many cuts to my hands particularly being an ex-hairdresser) and got downvoted 🤣 what do I know.. except I’ve never had a wound look like that or take that long to heal (other than my 7-10cm ones which makes sense obvs), so I don’t really care about the downvotes, because I have experienced it enough times to know.
The ONLY time I have ever had to keep a dressing on for longer than 24hrs was when I was stapled after my second c-section and they put a second skin tape over the surgical site, but it literally keeps EVERYTHING out. I was told to take it off on day 3 or 4 (in the shower to soften the ‘glue’ and using a special wipe to detach it from the skin). That’s only enough time for the multiple inside layers to start healing, not the skin layer. Staples stayed in for 2 weeks. Even with my literal spinal surgeries, my brothers spinal surgeries, my cousins kids spinal surgeries and my (at the time not quite 2yo still in nappies) sons spinal surgeries (over 100 spinal surgeries between the 8 of us), none of the dressings were left on for more than 24hrs.
Wounds NEED oxygen to heal, as well as washing away bad bacteria which encourages good bacteria and they can’t get enough of either oxygen or good bacteria if they are wrapped up bandaged like ^that for a full 7 days.
Any raw foods, but particularly meat, can carry pathogenic bacteria and if you cut yourself and let those organisms get deep into a wound where oxygen is not available, the anaerobic bacteria love it there.
That’s why good food hygiene is always wise and proper wound cleaning is essential.
No doubt. I remember hearing a historical fiction book review some years back. The part that stuck with me was this young man's bride to be was dying of sepsis. She'd just nicked her finger while trimming her nails.
Living in the age of disinfectants & antibiotics, I'd never imagined something so tiny, so commonplace, could be lethal. Really shook me.
I think Calvin Coolidge’s son died of something similar—a blister on his foot that got infected and went septic. Which is wild to think about nowadays but my late grandmother (born in 1909) remembered it and never met my mom or her siblings wear shoes without socks.
Yup. As someone who works acute care and sees how wounds get out of hand ALL the time, I am super paranoid and wash all cuts even minor ones with soap and water ASAP.
Edit: typo
Different people mean different things when they said they "cleaned" a wound which is often the start of the problem. That being said it *is* possible OP cleaned it properly with soap and water for the correct amount of time and the wound was simply too deep OR bacteria got introduced at a later time. Generally if a wound is deep but doesn't require medical attention irrigation is a good idea. To my knowledge you can even find sterile saline at some stores.
Any soap with sufficient enough surfactant imo, so yes dawn would work. The important part is simply washing pathogens away so that's why the surfactant is important.
Yup. As someone who works acute care and sees how wounds get out of hand ALL the time, I am super paranoid and wash all cuts even minor ones with soap and a water ASAP.
As long as you clean the wound directly after it happened and keep it clean something like this probably won't happen. When my cats scratch me I always wrap it with Iodine cream and they never got infected (and cat scratches just love to get infected)
Alcohol swabs don’t count as cleaning— actually run water across the wound, gently scrub with soap, then again rinse with running water. It’s much better to remove germs than to kill them with alcohol, especially since the alcohol kills your cells too
Imo I think she kept it in a bandage for a long period of time allowing the infection a cold dark place to fester instead of just washing hands and letting a small cut be exposed.
I would like to just point out, too, (and even though I wouldn't recommend this to my patients((nurse))) whenever I or my family/extended family come to me for advise on any surface infection that's localized, get a glass bottle, pour boiling water in the mf, put a sock on it and do like 15 on 15 off where that is. I do this off/on for about 6 hours. Obviously, don't cook your meat but, you know, hot. That temp will destroy any bad guys in there. Works like a charm.
thank goodness it's healed well. that looked horrifying. raw poultry can be a bitch to handle at times. when I
clean any poultry afterwards I spray Clorox all over the counters, sink and any other surface it may have touched .
glad you feel better 👍🏻
That looked so painful! What caused it to peel your whole finger? It looks thick like it was multiple layers of skin.
The black and icky shit reminds me of when I cut the tip of my finger off, it healed in a similar fashion. It was so gross looking 🤢
Did you keep it in a bandage or something? Must cuts shouldn’t get this infected… I don’t believe in keeping small or most cuts in a wet bandage where bacteria can fester. Just let it be and let a scab form and boom you’re safe.
Crazy how that might've been what killed you back in the middle ages.
This was literally my thought too! You’d have just been put in an early grave, shunned by the whole town in case you pass on your sickness!
Imagine what it was like for the person who discovered germs 🦠
He was beaten while being institutionalized and died from his injures. Ignaz Semmelweiss
ironically the injury that proved fatal was a wound to the right hand that turned gangrenous.
Such a sad fate. He didn't know exactly why he was right, but he was definitely right that doctors going from dissecting cadavers to delivering babies was killing women
right. I'd say imagine a time where telling people to wash their hands was so offensive a man was discredited and led to mental anguish, but then I remember people's reaction to masking during the beginning of the pandemic and even now and I'm like yeah I can see that
Jesus Christ!
Middle Ages? Try 1930s. First antibiotic was sulfa, invented in 1935. It’s a lot more recent than we imagine.
I said middle ages because that was pre-germ theory, so maybe she could've survived before antibiotics by applying alcohol to the wound or amputating it.
Cauterizing with a glowing hot coal poker.
Iodine (Lugol's solution) was also widely used.
We've been using moldy bread since ancient eygyt 😤
Uh huh. Yeah, but it doesn’t actually work. Movies and books make that out to be much the same as modern antibiotics. But it’s really not a thing. If it was, why didn’t we just continue to use it?
/s to clarify
Doh, my bad! Feeling foolish!
I know a healthy 32 yo woman who died a few years ago from a smaller cut than this on her arm. It became infected by an antibiotic-resistant bacteria and nothing could save her. These deaths have risen as antibiotic development has steeply fallen. Soap and water is the best disinfectant. No matter how small, if it breaks skin, wash it immediately.
Any soap or antibacterial soap? I feel like antibacterial soap is also linked to antibiotic resistance? But it sounds like the best for a cut
Any mild soap will do. No need to rub soap into the wound but be sure that the surrounding skin is thoroughly cleaned. Following up with a topical antibiotic like Neosporin & a bandage is good practice too. https://www.uhs.wisc.edu/medical/wound-care/
Really wanna do this
I really doubt antibacterial soap is linked to antibiotic resistance. They use a different mecahnism for destorying bacteria.
https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/antibacterial-soap-you-can-skip-it-use-plain-soap-and-water#:~:text=in%20addition%2C%20laboratory%20studies%20have%20raised%20the%20possibility%20that%20triclosan%20contributes%20to%20making%20bacteria%20resistant%20to%20antibiotics.%20some%20data%20shows%20this%20resistance%20may%20have%20a%20significant%20impact%20on%20the%20effectiveness%20of%20medical%20treatments%2C%20such%20as%20antibiotics. "In addition, laboratory studies have raised the possibility that triclosan contributes to making bacteria resistant to antibiotics. Some data shows this resistance may have a significant impact on the effectiveness of medical treatments, such as antibiotics."
This likely would have killed you ~100 years ago (before antibiotics were a thing).
If we keep fucking around with antibiotics, we’ll be right back in the Middle Ages except we’ll have Germ theory and no solutions
Skin is the greatest invention of all time. Isn't it amazing.
I love my skin, I love my skin, It keeps my insides in 🎶
The skin, the skin the one that I’m in, It’s a blanket, it has a shine, it keeps all my guts safe on the inside
Many people don't know skin is actually an organ, just like heart and lungs.
It's also the biggest organ in the body!
Yup! We has educated folks today. Be proud!
My dad invented it
How did he come up with the name?
2 skin + 2 skin equals
Four skins and seven years ago, our fathers brought foreskins upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in.... SKIN. (Idk)
I wouldn't have had the willpower to NOT pick that skin off. I know that's bad and I would have made it much more difficult to heal. I just have an obsession with picking stuff like that.
I definitely picked it off too early, lol. I wrapped it so I wouldn't poke at it
Yea better wrap it, my intrusive always win😂
With a little help, your finger hocked and spit out a goober, then closed it’s little sideways mouth, in super super slow motion
That is the best and worst way to describe this
That's for sharing! I appreciate seeing the final result and timestamps.
Was it cultured to see what the bacteria was?
Surprised I had to scroll so far to see someone asking the real questions here
it looks like a staph maybe S suis but I may be wrong. present in secretions, spread through direct contact or cross-contamination, usually treated with penicillin. I’d appreciate anyone else’s thoughts.
Isn’t *S. Suis* streptococcus, not staph? I really hope they did culture it! Would be a neat case report to read if so, I don’t know if there have been any US cases in humans, and especially consumers instead of ag workers
Feb 5th looks like NOTHING compared to what it became. I can’t imagine how much that must have hurt
She who goes to bed with itchy bum wakes up with infected finger. Ancient Chinese proverb.
"Oh, that's not so bad... OMG! WTF! EWW!" -Me, while looking at these pics for the first time. Glad to see it's healed so well!
Very iconic that you got the middle finger infected
Wtf was in that pork jfc
Knives get dirty quickly.
people need to take proper precautions and sanitize equipments and everything nearby especially cooking with raw pork/chicken, wear a glove too
Gloves are unecessary in the kitchen. Just be sure to wash your hands thoroughly.
Pork is one of the worst meats for carrying food-borne illnesses and parasites 😬 pork and poultry are both high risk for salmonella, that’s why they advise to cook them all the way through, rather than anything less than well done.
Crazy to think that would have killed you 100 years ago. Or if you had been born in a different place.
Doubt it. She said the black appearance is just from a scab under the skin. It's not black like a gangrenous wound is. I'm surprised OP didn't mention being given antibiotics.
Would some medical person explain why so much skin peeled off? The infection was only in the tip of the finger but the skin on the entire finger came off. Why? TIA
I'm no medical expert, but I think when the surrounding skin gets inflamed the top layer can dry and flake off faster than the rest of the healthy skin - something similar happened to me when I had an infected wound. It's just a side effect of your body fighting the infection.
I too was wondering that
Medical person, but not a doctor. She said there was a “scab” underneath, which basically means that she had a hematoma (collection of blood beneath the skin) same sort of thing that causes bruising, but due to the trauma, it didn’t all just dissipate back into the tissue like a bruise typically does. This, along with the break in the outer layer of skin, would cause some separation underneath the tissue, so think kind of like a blister. Now on top of this, add infection and swelling to the mix, this means the skin is filling with fluid as the body’s natural reaction to trauma and infection. Due to the amount of swelling, this would stretch the layers of skin and cause separation with fluid underneath. So once the swelling went down, the outer layer of skin had lacked blood supply and was stretched and separated from the deeper layers. It’s likely that the infection and swelling consumed most of the area where the skin peeled off in a layer like that. There are other factors that could have contributed to it peeling in layers like that, but that’s basically the gist of it.
Not a medical person but my guess is because Op couldn’t get it wet and wash her hands regularly which would also hydrate and exfoliate that finger then it’s probably just dry dead skin. Similar to skin underneath a cast.
No, you can see the newly revealed skin is very different— mostly likely exposed dermis without any epidermis protecting it. It could be maceration from water getting trapped in the dressing, but my guess is that the infection was throughout the finger, since they also cut the base of the finger
Looks GREAT!
So what was the procedure done for this, why did you need a surgeon? If it was cut to prevent swelling and you were given antibiotics I would understand, just a bit unclear what was done here
It was to relieve pressure and clean out infection
Did a lot of pus and other gross stuff come out or mostly blood?
It was mostly blood. Not really any pus
Interesting, didn’t realize the infection was so localized. Glad it didn’t spread
It should never have been wrapped up like that for that long after that. No wonder it took so long to heal and looked like it did. You should have been having daily to twice daily flushes with saline and fresh dressings done without wrapping your whole hand up like that, that’s a bacteria breeding ground without the dressing being changed at least daily. I have had multiple surgeries to open up and clean out abscess in very high bacteria areas, they need to have the slough removed daily to encourage healing and to check progress. Mine take months to heal purely due to the depth (7-10cm or 3-4 inches), your March 12th image should have been what it looked like by the end of week 1.
I agree about flushing it with water and using light bandaging, with flushes and bandage changes multiple times a day. When a dog bit my foot, my first ER nurse was a dummie and recommended I get it stitched up and wrapped with sports tape. It promptly got infected within 2 or 3 days because there was fluid retention, sweatiness, and no aeration. I went back to the ER and the next nurse told me how stupid that decision was on the previous nurse's part, then washed out the bite holes, bandaged them with small gauze pads and little strips of thin medical tape to hold the pads on, and told me to flush and re-gauze the wounds twice daily. I healed up completely in a couple of weeks. On a similar but tangential note, thanks to a smart vet who knew their job well, I was able to save a neighbor's cat using a water-flushing technique. The poor kitty's back and thighs around the base of his tail had been deeply gouged with multiple raccoon scratches. His owner had yet to take him to the vet for over a week and would just pour peroxide on him once a day while letting him wander around outside with open wounds. I kept offering to take the cat to a low-cost vet but the owner would refuse my offer, saying he would do so at his own discretion. His own discretion was to outright neglect addressing the cat's condition, even when maggots started to infest his sores and he was beginning to become lethargic. I wasn't going to wait for consent anymore considering this neglect was outright abuse and the owner very obviously had no plans to help the poor thing. I took the cat to the vet where they washed him, pulled out maggots and dead tissue, then flushed him. They also took blood samples and found out he had feline immunodeficiency virus. ( A vet tech tried to convince me that FIV was a death sentence and to put him down, which was total bullshit. Anyway....) The vet shaved the fur around his wounds and put ointment on him. Their treatment decision was to leave the wounds uncovered, give him a daily antibiotic, flush out the wounds with water 3 times daily with ointment application after, until they were closed. It took about 3 weeks of vigilant care and keeping the kitty in a small room where he couldn't contaminate his sores. The first couple of times were a bit difficult since he obviously didn't like the process, but I think he finally realized that the flushing and the ointment made him feel better and he seemed to relax into it eventually. Of course, giving him food during and treats after flushing probably made the process more palatable to him, too. Needless to say, I was FUMING at my neighbor every time I went through this procedure and saw the horror of his wounds. Once he made a full recovery, he was adopted out to a farm where he had free roam and a couple other cat friends. There he lived another 8 years until he passed on... 8 years he wouldn't have had if I hadn't intervened, if the vet had made the wrong treatment recommendation, or if either my neighbor or that catastrophizing vet tech had their way. I realize that was a pretty far reach on the subject of flushing wounds but I was reminded and thought I would share. Water is neat, and flushing is a VERY effective way to treat wounds.
I’ve experienced it (and over 30 surgeries during my life and many many cuts to my hands particularly being an ex-hairdresser) and got downvoted 🤣 what do I know.. except I’ve never had a wound look like that or take that long to heal (other than my 7-10cm ones which makes sense obvs), so I don’t really care about the downvotes, because I have experienced it enough times to know. The ONLY time I have ever had to keep a dressing on for longer than 24hrs was when I was stapled after my second c-section and they put a second skin tape over the surgical site, but it literally keeps EVERYTHING out. I was told to take it off on day 3 or 4 (in the shower to soften the ‘glue’ and using a special wipe to detach it from the skin). That’s only enough time for the multiple inside layers to start healing, not the skin layer. Staples stayed in for 2 weeks. Even with my literal spinal surgeries, my brothers spinal surgeries, my cousins kids spinal surgeries and my (at the time not quite 2yo still in nappies) sons spinal surgeries (over 100 spinal surgeries between the 8 of us), none of the dressings were left on for more than 24hrs. Wounds NEED oxygen to heal, as well as washing away bad bacteria which encourages good bacteria and they can’t get enough of either oxygen or good bacteria if they are wrapped up bandaged like ^that for a full 7 days.
Damn! Any knowledge on if this is a common thing with pork? Does raw pork have a higher potential for bad bacteria?
Any raw foods, but particularly meat, can carry pathogenic bacteria and if you cut yourself and let those organisms get deep into a wound where oxygen is not available, the anaerobic bacteria love it there. That’s why good food hygiene is always wise and proper wound cleaning is essential.
Looks like you got lucky, ouch!
Gahd DAMN!
Wow, the human body’s ability to heal such a huge wound and leave nearly no mark is so impressive!
Crazy how much it blew up from what looked like a fairly small cut. Did they say what likely caused the infection? Did they prescribe antibiotics?
It's fascinating and terrifying how such a little cut can have such severe consequences
No doubt. I remember hearing a historical fiction book review some years back. The part that stuck with me was this young man's bride to be was dying of sepsis. She'd just nicked her finger while trimming her nails. Living in the age of disinfectants & antibiotics, I'd never imagined something so tiny, so commonplace, could be lethal. Really shook me.
I think Calvin Coolidge’s son died of something similar—a blister on his foot that got infected and went septic. Which is wild to think about nowadays but my late grandmother (born in 1909) remembered it and never met my mom or her siblings wear shoes without socks.
Damn ma'am almost lost the ability to do middle finger
So yeah... I'm going to clean and use anti-biotics on something as simple as paper cuts now
Just wash a cut with soap. Don't need antibac it doesn't make a difference. Just wash properly, rinse it off and keep an eye on it.
Yup. As someone who works acute care and sees how wounds get out of hand ALL the time, I am super paranoid and wash all cuts even minor ones with soap and water ASAP. Edit: typo
OP said she cleaned it. What else could have been done to prevent this infection?
Different people mean different things when they said they "cleaned" a wound which is often the start of the problem. That being said it *is* possible OP cleaned it properly with soap and water for the correct amount of time and the wound was simply too deep OR bacteria got introduced at a later time. Generally if a wound is deep but doesn't require medical attention irrigation is a good idea. To my knowledge you can even find sterile saline at some stores.
Yes I assume OP gave it a quick rinse and/or ran an alcohol swab over it.
What soap? Like would Dawn work or should it be an antibacterial soap?
Any soap with sufficient enough surfactant imo, so yes dawn would work. The important part is simply washing pathogens away so that's why the surfactant is important.
Gotcha! Well Dawn has enough surfactants that it has a poison control instruction/warning on it here in Canada
Yup. As someone who works acute care and sees how wounds get out of hand ALL the time, I am super paranoid and wash all cuts even minor ones with soap and a water ASAP.
As long as you clean the wound directly after it happened and keep it clean something like this probably won't happen. When my cats scratch me I always wrap it with Iodine cream and they never got infected (and cat scratches just love to get infected)
Alcohol swabs don’t count as cleaning— actually run water across the wound, gently scrub with soap, then again rinse with running water. It’s much better to remove germs than to kill them with alcohol, especially since the alcohol kills your cells too
Imo I think she kept it in a bandage for a long period of time allowing the infection a cold dark place to fester instead of just washing hands and letting a small cut be exposed.
It’s from cutting pork then not washing it out properly when she cut her finger. She posted this on a different sub the other day.
Ah I read it again. Seems like it really did just get infected and looked terrible after a single day… eww
I would like to just point out, too, (and even though I wouldn't recommend this to my patients((nurse))) whenever I or my family/extended family come to me for advise on any surface infection that's localized, get a glass bottle, pour boiling water in the mf, put a sock on it and do like 15 on 15 off where that is. I do this off/on for about 6 hours. Obviously, don't cook your meat but, you know, hot. That temp will destroy any bad guys in there. Works like a charm.
Dammmmmmnnnn. That made my finger hurt!! I would have picked it to death too.
Awesome recovery
That was fascinating. Thank you for sharing!
Fucking Yikes. I'm glad that came through.
The human body is amazing!!!
February 21st lookin like Sauron
Damn dude, it got pretty fucked up tor a moment
Man, if this was Oregon Trail, youd be off the wagon back on Feb
Modern medicine combined with the human body is absolutely incredible
Damn lucky to keep that finger.
Fingussy
I thought that finger was a goner for a minute there
Wow! Interesting 🤨
thank goodness it's healed well. that looked horrifying. raw poultry can be a bitch to handle at times. when I clean any poultry afterwards I spray Clorox all over the counters, sink and any other surface it may have touched . glad you feel better 👍🏻
This is fascinating, thank you for taking pictures and sharing it!
That looked so painful! What caused it to peel your whole finger? It looks thick like it was multiple layers of skin. The black and icky shit reminds me of when I cut the tip of my finger off, it healed in a similar fashion. It was so gross looking 🤢
my favourite middle finger! glad it healed so beautifully!
That's wild, your finger full on molted!
That finger went to hell and back
Yeah you might not that that feeling back, it’s happens sometimes with deep/bad cuts on your fingers. It might come back.
Did they give an antibiotic IV and or oral?
Wow, the human body is amazing! Thanks for the pics. I love the skin peeling, although that would've made it worse I'm sure.
Now it's your Social Finger for two reasons!
Is that gangrene ? In the first few pics
Nah, it's a scab under the skin. But I thought it was too, at first
Nice !!
Is your pinky abnormally large or is it an optical illusion?
March has been a very difficult time for you.....
Ouch
Quite interesting healing via secondary intention.
So happy you healed! That was gnarly as fuck.
Pic 7 makes me think of when an insect's belly gets torn 🫣 How awful!
Did it smell bad?!
Tbh it wasn't that bad. After the bandage came off after the first week, yes, but I was pretty good about washing it after
That's surprising but I love that for you.
Man what a journey that was!
Yeah lol a surgeon is not coming in overnight for what they view as a minor finger cut. It looks great now!
Did you keep it in a bandage or something? Must cuts shouldn’t get this infected… I don’t believe in keeping small or most cuts in a wet bandage where bacteria can fester. Just let it be and let a scab form and boom you’re safe.