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This morning, while walking around the house in stockinged feet, I banged my left big toe head on, full force, against the bottom rung of a ladder that my wife had lowered from the ceiling for access to our attic. That ladder comes down at a shallower angle than a normal ladder, and I apparently subconsciously misjudged the location of its bottom end.
The impact was square against the end of the toenail, which "flipped off" completely and cleanly in one piece, leaving the toe completely "naked."
When I took my sock off and saw what had happened, my wife managed to get an appointment for me at the doctor this afternoon. In the meantime, I left the toe as it was, just wiping away the bit of blood that trickled down the side of the toe. The rest of it congealed in place, where the toenail had been. I was surprised that there was no pain except of course at the moment of impact.
After the nurse cleaned the dried blood off (still no pain, but the surface was rather sensitive), the doctor took a look. He said it was good that the whole nail had come off, because otherwise he would have had to cut any remaining part off; that it would grow back eventually, and I just needed to apply Neosporin and keep it bandaged for a week or two. The nurse bandaged it up and gave me a tetanus shot just in case.
So now I'm sitting in a recliner with my feet up and the toe swathed in a big blob of gauze. It looks like I'll have to be careful while walking around, for a while. And I have the toenail as a souvenir!
The impact was square against the end of the toenail, which "flipped off" completely and cleanly in one piece, leaving the toe completely "naked."
When I took my sock off and saw what had happened, my wife managed to get an appointment for me at the doctor this afternoon. In the meantime, I left the toe as it was, just wiping away the bit of blood that trickled down the side of the toe. The rest of it congealed in place, where the toenail had been. I was surprised that there was no pain except of course at the moment of impact.
After the nurse cleaned the dried blood off (still no pain, but the surface was rather sensitive), the doctor took a look. He said it was good that the whole nail had come off, because otherwise he would have had to cut any remaining part off; that it would grow back eventually, and I just needed to apply Neosporin and keep it bandaged for a week or two. The nurse bandaged it up and gave me a tetanus shot just in case.
So now I'm sitting in a recliner with my feet up and the toe swathed in a big blob of gauze. It looks like I'll have to be careful while walking around, for a while. And I have the toenail as a souvenir!