Black toenail, should I take DH to A&E

[Helga80]

DH was at karate tonight and idiot managed to stamp on his big toe.

One side (the inside IYSWIM) of it is now black with what looks like bruising/bleeding under the nail, should I be whisking him off to A&E to have it drilled to release the blood and avoid the nail falling off?

We live in Cardiff so A&E will take the best part of the night and we both have work at 7:30 tomorrow so only want to head of if necessary.

Answers on a postcard

PMSL at Mrshankly

well....having worked as an A+E doc for a few years we see these all the time, its called a subungal haematoma. and its really fun to deal - hot paperclip, blood hits the ceiling (becasue of the pressure not because there's loads of it), pain goes immediately - v satisfying.

SO in answer to your question - if its agonsingly painful - throbbing etc - then go

if not and its just a bit sore then don't it'll just fall off in its own time

so all depends how painful it is. it can be really bad - massive build up of pressure under the nail. but it can go black without being painful as well. so depends.

HTH

excuse the typos

oh but it won't stop the nail falling off - whatever you do

I was in a club once when I was about 18 and stepped up a steep wooden stair, I caught my foot on it and fell over. Carried on walking and got to the toilet when I realised my foot hurt, looked down and saw lots of blood.

I'd ripped my toe nail up so it was facing the ceiling by falling on that step. It really, really hurt. I went to the bar and asked someone to get my then bf who was djing. I was sitting there sobbing and drunk and the barman gave me a free beer, I had women asking me if I was ok too. Someone got a first aid kit, put some cotton wool in dettol and wiped under my toe nail, now that hurt.

I got carried to the cab by a bouncer, bf was a twat and didn't even come to the hospital with me, and spent a few hours in a&e alone before having 4 needles in my toe to numb it (I think they called it a ring block) and then he pushed it back down and dressed it. It took a few weeks to fall off I think but it was so, painful and throbbed for ages afterwards. I had painkillers but I didn't want to take them as I've always been weird about taking medication.

Just realised this is far too long for a toe nail post lol.

GP surgeries are busy this time of year, too, what with flu clinics and that.

DH has had this fecking cough for well over a fortnight and downing Robutussin like Coke and it's still not shifted so I forced him to phone the surgery today at 8.30AM. He got lucky and got a cancellation for 6PM tomorrow.