Bad experiences make a great story

HQDefault

...what
aa
Aug 6, 2014
1,056
535
*Warning: Gross crap ahead*


Wanna hear a touchin' story?

Here's a touchin' story-

So, I've had an ingrown toenail that I've been semi-successfully treating for a while now. But recently it starting getting gross and weird. However, here's the catch: I have trouble admitting when I need help, so I never told my parents this. Sounds stupid, right? Well, eventually I had a mental breakdown that literally made me feel ill. So I admitted the truth, and guess what:

The Doctor said there was only a minor infection and the toenail wasn't bad enough for him to cut it off, so he just told me to soak it in hot water every day, let it grow out, and he gave me some antibiotics. That's it :lol:

So, let me put it to you this way: I spent over a month with that secret on my chest, and then I finally got it off and the consequence of it all wan't even that bad.

So that last part happened today, and for whatever reason I needed to share it :blush:



Anyone else have a bad experience that makes a great story?
 

Fantaboi

Gone and one day forgotten
aa
Mar 11, 2013
892
1,050
I did steam voice chat in the group, was fun and stuff... I mean, it's no ingrown toe nail breakdown, but it's something
 

Teddy Schnapps

L2: Junior Member
Feb 5, 2014
51
22
I talked to Crash in person for the first time. Was a good day.

*jumps on bed, takes out book from under bed*
*writes furiously in diary*

“Dear diary,
I’m a somebody now!”
 

Egan

aa
Feb 14, 2010
1,375
1,720
Similar experience that I've shared extensively to the chat against their wills:

Needed to buy new shoes for school before it started the next week, had two pairs of shoes with me at the time: shoes too small for me, and shoes I had worn over the summer mowing lawns - completely destroyed ones. I sided with not looking homeless and wore the ones too small seeing as they fit at least decently. Did buy new shoes luckily, but I didn't wear them home. A while after this I took off my socks and noticed that my two large toenails had been pushed down into the toes, as if they suddenly became ingrown.

I didn't take action with it until the one on the right started shifting to yellow (about 2 weeks later) - meaning it was beginning to become infected. I talked with the doctor at the local walk-in clinic, and he prescribed me some cream to prevent further infection and told me to soak the toe in vinegar/water to kill any remaining bacteria. Apparently I didn't do that as often as I should because the cream didn't seem to destroy the bacteria - rather it seemed to halt the progression but only that.

Near the end of October I ran out of cream and the toenail was still yellow, also around this time the skin at the base of the toenail turned red - it was becoming inflamed. I returned to the doctor a few days later asking what next? and he prescribed me some pills to get rid of the inflammation. The pills worked really well, except not 100%. It seemed the pills got rid of 95% of the inflammation within a day, but the moment the pills ran out (about 2 weeks) the inflammation came right back full-force.

I was busy with school and mapping at the time so I couldn't immediately return to the doctor, but I did push out some last drops of cream from its container and could at least prevent further infection. Around mid-November my father's girlfriend recommended I try a local podiatrist (foot specialist) that they had previous experience with due to her son's ingrown toenail from a few years ago. I waited until the end of school because I suck, but did talk to the local podiatrist. I told him about the cream, and the pills, and he mentioned that while he could prescribe more pills for me they might have the same effect as the previous supply as pills, and that a more sure-fire solution would be to remove the entire toenail. He proposed it very confidently so I responded equally without really thinking, and he booked the appointment four days from then.

I arrived and they washed my toe with some sterilizer, they stuck two needles in to freeze the toe so no pain would come upon me, and then left to work on another patient for the 8 minutes it takes for the stuff to kick in. Doctor comes back in, readies me up, and he gives the nail a big tug.. except, I can feel it 100%. Apparently that freezing didn't really work. I flinched at his tugging and told him of the pain and he did seem hesitant to continue, mentioning how he didn't want to torture me (seeing as removing toenails is a torture method in some places). He put in another needle of freezing and said he'd be back in 8 minutes. I couldn't see my toe at this point since they had a towel on a small bed-table to block my view, but I had noticed blood on the doctor's gloves.

Doctor comes back 8 minutes later again and gives it another go. Second time's the charm as I didn't feel anything. He asked if I wanted to keep the removed nail but I declined. I did however snap some cool pictures of it [1] [2] [3].

They gave me a package of wound supplies and mentioned to actually do nothing at all for the first 24 hours. Daily from then - December 19th - ~January 2nd 2015, I had to remove the previous bandage, soak the foot in a bucket of water and a tablespoon of vinegar, spray the wound with 'wound-wash', and then pull back the skin and rub 'wound-gel' near the base of the nail. I'm not gonna lie, the gel was the worst part of the whole experience, pretty tough to continue doing something when in the past it was nothing but pain when you did it.

So it's been around a month since the operation, I have almost zero pain except for some irritation if my sock rubs against the wound - I wear a band-aid now to school to get rid of that. This is an image of what it looks like now.

Advice to people in similar situations is to really stick to the doctor's advice - I probably wasn't soaking my toenail in the water/vinegar enough when they asked me to do that back in September - I was only doing it like once a week, when it should have been once a day.
 

HQDefault

...what
aa
Aug 6, 2014
1,056
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@egan (I'm not gonna quote, 'cause that's a long as all hell reply)

That's why we follow instructions :3

Unless you're assembling something. Nobody likes reading those instructions.

But seriously, thanks for the reply. It helps me learn from your mistake. So, basically, I REALLY need to remember to take the pills and soak my feet.