MetaChat - small piece of glass stuck in my foot!

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01 February 2008

small piece of glass stuck in my foot! How do I get it out? Shower first? Oh am I going to die? I have tweezers but I'm scared of infection...no insurance right now.

post by: sweetkid at: 18:18 | 15 comments

Sterilize the tweezers with a lit match. Be careful pulling the glass out; don't squeeze and break it into smaller pieces. After removal, slather on some antibiotic gel, like neosporin, and cover with a bandage.

Alternatively, soak your foot in warm water for a while. It might come out on its own. Then, the antibiotic gel and bandage.

It's unlikely to get infected, but it never hurts to be safe.

posted by mudpuppie 01 February | 18:28

Put alcohol on it. If no isopropyl alcohol, use whatever hard liquor you have. Take a few slugs of the hard liquor (not the isopropyl alcyhol), and then tweeze it out. If you have bacitracin or a topical antibacterial ointment, put a schmeckel of it on the wound, then put a band-aid over that, and then a clean sock. And then take a few more slugs of the hard liquor, and let the worry of infection drain out of you.

posted by not_on_display 01 February | 18:29

Sterilize the tweezers with hydrogen peroxide. Barring that, whatever high alcohol/low sugar thing you've got on hand (ie, everclear is best, wine is the worst). If you can't get it out with tweezers, then I've heard an epsom salt bath may extract it.

It won't get infected.

posted by muddgirl 01 February | 18:31

Glass is just about the best thing to get a sliver of in one's foot qua infection risk. Having said that, there might be free/cheap clinic things near you. I'm not familiar with the American healthcare system so that's just third hand advice that I see given at the Other Place a lot.

posted by atrazine 01 February | 18:31

Or listen to the others and do it yourself, depends on how big it is.

posted by atrazine 01 February | 18:32

All done, hooray! Not nearly as bad as i feared.

posted by sweetkid 01 February | 19:02

Oh, I did the tweezers in alcohol thing.

posted by sweetkid 01 February | 19:08

The glass wasn't from a pickle jar, was it? Because if there was pickle residue on the glass, there's a chance that your feet might start spontaneously generating pickles within the next week or so.

posted by mudpuppie 01 February | 19:11

Oh no, picklefoot!

posted by ethylene 01 February | 19:20

Late to the party, but you also could've used a piece of duct tape.

posted by chewatadistance 01 February | 19:57

Duct tape! That is a great idea.

posted by LoriFLA 01 February | 22:30

Your dilemma reminds me of the Ian Fleming novel, "Thunderball", where Domino steps on some kind of poison fish and James Bond carries her to the beach and sucks the toxic fish spines out of the sole of her foot. So getting a guy to suck the glass out of your foot was an option that you neglected to pursue, for some strange reason ;P

posted by iconomy 01 February | 22:45

Yeah dammit! Where is James Bond when I need him.

posted by sweetkid 01 February | 22:48

If this is useful to anyone else, showering first definitely helped. The sliver came halfway out by itself from the steam or something.

posted by sweetkid 01 February | 23:34

Eeeewwwww! I have nightmares where I'm walking down a sidewalk, barefoot, dodging broken glass. Eventually I find myself trapped in an area where there's nowhere left to step. Sometimes I step down anyway, out of desperation, then try to work the glass out of the sole of my foot with my fingers, inevitably causing me to stumble and . . .

DO NOT WANT!

(Glad you got it out!)

posted by treepour 02 February | 05:38

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