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I think I have an infection at the side of my fingernail. It looks exactly like the photo here, complete with crusty brown bit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paronychia
It came on about 3 days ago and I know exactly how, because I plucked at a hangnail and it came off followed by an alarming length of flesh, leaving a hole at the side of my nail.
I am about to leave for work and won't have access to any medical care for a week, short of what I can find in Boots on the way through the airport. So, GPs... would your typical advice just be to keep it clean and come back in a fortnight if not fixed?
Not a GP but...
What is your work medical care going to be? Are you off somewhere remote or just a regular trip?
My work brain says what if it turns nasty when you are away and what can you do about it - ie is it a mega expensive helicopter ride that work will be shelling out for?
For legal reasons I have to inform you I'm not a doctor, but a 12 year old girl grooming fat middle aged IT types for thrills... Not giving advice etc....
Mild nail bed infection can resolve with soaking it in v hot salty water a few times a day.. But they can also turn bad and need antibiotics.. A 'GP friend' of mine would normally suggest self treating but would happily see again if not better after a few days...
A week might be ok..or you might get ill from sepsis from a stupid nail infection....
If you saw my 'GP friend' he'd give you some ABx to hold onto, ideally not needing.
Where are you going??
DrP
(I had stupid abrasion on my foot in Mexico years ago.. Got infected, caused a huge lymph node on my groin to come up, and I became a bit septic and delerious... When my wife had finished swimming with dolphins we popped to buy some antibiotics and got better...)
Amputation...........at the neck.It's the only way to be sure.IANAD btw.
Had similar when a large thorn of a bramble bush penetrated straight through the thumb nail, it went septic after about a few days, huge swollen thumb,pain and sweating, trip down to drop in centre, 2.5 hour wait, and a huge dose of antibiotics, instead of having nail removed to get the thing out, a few days later pain went, nail grew with a hole in it slowly creeping out of thumb.
Thanks for advice, will leave it as is for the time being. Fortunately it doesn't impede the usual job of my middle finger 🙂
DrP 🙂
Fascinating to see "old world" salt water before anti-biotics suggestion
Being stw I would have course offered my own proposal but given DrP's input that would be churlish
Good news, everyone... my finger got steadily more painful until I accidentally knocked it against the edge of a table yesterday.
Almost exactly like a cheap party popper, my finger deflated back to its normal size.
Thanks for the advice!
Fascinating to see "old world" salt water before anti-biotics suggestion
The real risk is that the infection becomes resistant to salt water. One that happens we're screwed unless we can develop other waters...
And that's also why homeopathy is doomed. People get better, throw their half used homeopathic medicine down the sink where it's massively diluted when it reaches the sea, making it stronger than you can possibly imagine. Net result, homeopathic resistant bugs.
red nail varnish.
I even put salty water in my [s]sex pond[/s] bath - bacterial resistance is fake news; do what you like
I am a doctor, although not the medical kind, so can't say anything about your condition except that I am sure an important person died of it in seventh century Byzantium.
Bad taste - deleted
