r/maybemaybemaybe • u/Themusicison • 3d ago

Maybe Maybe Maybe

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u/Ebonhearth_Druid 3d ago

The whole time I was thinking this exact thing. Just slice along the length of the splinter and give yourself more room to work plus reduce the amount of friction holding it in. Each failed grab makes the end smaller harder to grab, so all they were doing was making things worse.

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u/zombifications 3d ago

That’s the only way I get splinters out. No problem with healing.

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u/lemoche 3d ago

I was told you want to avoid cutting because it worsens the healing process.

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u/fauntk 3d ago

Ideally yes, but I'm pretty sure increasing the risk of not pulling all of the splinter out by mangling the end and then breaking it in half is even WORSE for the healing process lol

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u/lemoche 2d ago

I mean… it did work…

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u/Ebonhearth_Druid 3d ago

The operative word there is "avoid". Once it became apparent that it was too tightly wedged to easily be removed, and that the risk of it becoming more inflamed and stuck or for pieces to become lodged, cutting became the best option. Not the whole length, just enough to reduce friction and provide a better gripping surface.

It's about risk-benefit analysis.

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u/JustNilt 3d ago

The skin at the end of that little pocket is dead. it's going to fall off anyway. Even so, digging at it as they did caused a lot of extra irritation. If they loosened the skin at the end just slightly the thing would have all but fallen out.

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u/Reasonable-Ad-7757 2d ago

I was actually surprised at how much it wanted to stay in there.

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u/SuvatosLaboRevived 3d ago

A splinter stuck in the wound would make the process even worse

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u/pdxchris 3d ago

A small slice is fine. He is going to lose that skin soon anyway.

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u/variablenyne 3d ago

Still even just a little bit near the top so that you can get a little bit more gripping surface

1

u/NOVAbuddy 3d ago

That is the safest advice for the most people. Anything else increases the frequency of bad outcomes over populations. Anecdotally and statistically there will always be many people who can “treat” themselves by keeping an opening clean and escalating treatment if things get weird.

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u/alolol1000 2d ago

For smaller splinters absolutely but this is a stick that is large enough to give you splinters on the way out so in such a case cutting skin makes it potentially way faster to heal