Steve: Thank you for the lesson in how not to do it! I will keep that in mind while working outside on the bench work.
Paul
Steve Featherkile said:
Well, he shoved what looked like a pipe into my finger, to inject some numbing medicine. Hurt like hell! Query, why does numbing medicine hurt like hell on the way in?
Hi Steve,
Lidocaine local injections hurt like “H” because they are acidic with a ph of 7.4 to allow them to sit on the shelf in little glass jars for a long time at your doc’s shop.
This “country” doc buffers the syringe of anticipated misery with a little sterile sodium bicarbonate just prior to injection. I also use a hair fine #27 needle and ethyl chloride spray (cools the skin) prior to injection. Voila …relatively painless local anesthesia. The patients love it and not as many complaints.
Glad your finger is on the mend.
Doc Tom
suck it up Steve 
You want my pink hat? It will make you feel better.
If it makes you feel better I have a splinter in my finger now. Been working on it for three days. Ill win eventually.
Well at least all is well now.(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif) That’s good. You don’t want a fish hook in your finger either. Not good I know. (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cry.gif)Later RJD
Tom Grabenstein said:
Steve Featherkile said:
Well, he shoved what looked like a pipe into my finger, to inject some numbing medicine. Hurt like hell! Query, why does numbing medicine hurt like hell on the way in?
Hi Steve,
Lidocaine local injections hurt like “H” because they are acidic with a ph of 7.4 to allow them to sit on the shelf in little glass jars for a long time at your doc’s shop.
This “country” doc buffers the syringe of anticipated misery with a little sterile sodium bicarbonate just prior to injection. I also use a hair fine #27 needle and ethyl chloride spray (cools the skin) prior to injection. Voila …relatively painless local anesthesia. The patients love it and not as many complaints.
Glad your finger is on the mend.
Doc Tom
The first time I had stitches I thought the dude stitching me was using an IV needle to give me the shot and then a crochet needle to do the stitching. He says to me before we start you will feel a little sting and burn then after that just some slight pressure" Ya right he unleashed the gates of hell.
The next time I went in I got basically the same explanation and expected the same results. I felt a cool sensation while he was “cleaning the area” well wasn’t actually cleaning it he gave me something topical to numb it. Then came the shot ‘cringe’ nope never felt it. then he proceeded to scrub the heck out of it because it was an nasty dirty wound, didn’t hurt a bit. Then the sewing began and he had the gentlest touch a little tugging but nothing bad.
I guess it just depends on how good someone is at their job and their experience.
Well, I’m a Physician Assistant, with nearly 40 years of practice, so I’ve seen just about everything. A 27 g needle looks like the Alaska Pipeline when its pointed at you, I don’t care who you are. Injecting directly into an infected wound is probably the most painful of all injections. I would have done a nerve block, but I wasn’t given a choice. I’m not sure that cooling a finger would be a good idea, though. If you use enough coolant to be effective, you might compromise circulation, though that is just opinion. My Quack is an Air Force Flight Surgeon, and therein, I think, lies the problem. He is Air Force.(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif) (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)
And a Reserve Officer at that.
And I’m back at work on the layout.
Welcome to the Loyal Order of Hamfists (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
LOL. Where do you find these, Vic?
Steve Featherkile said:
Well, I’m a Physician Assistant, with nearly 40 years of practice, so I’ve seen just about everything. A 27 g needle looks like the Alaska Pipeline when its pointed at you, I don’t care who you are. Injecting directly into an infected wound is probably the most painful of all injections. I would have done a nerve block, but I wasn’t given a choice. I’m not sure that cooling a finger would be a good idea, though. If you use enough coolant to be effective, you might compromise circulation, though that is just opinion. My Quack is an Air Force Flight Surgeon, and therein, I think, lies the problem. He is Air Force.(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif) (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)
And a Reserve Officer at that.
Yep, a digital nerve block at the base of your finger would have worked well. Injecting in to infected tissue does give one pause.
Thanks for your 40 years of service to those that ail. I am at 38 years.
Doc Tom
Hope I didn’t step on yer toes, Doc Tom. Yer not Air Force, are ye? (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-innocent.gif)
Steve you and I have talked on this subject a couple of times but I don’t recall whether or not you have told me exactly what service you were in and what your job was. I get the feeling maybe at least at some point your were a navy corpsman and maybe attached at some point to a jar head unit?
Steve Featherkile said:
Hope I didn’t step on yer toes, Doc Tom. Yer not Air Force, are ye? (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-innocent.gif)
Naw…just hillbilly Tennessee.
Doc Tom
Hey Doc,
Do you take payment in chickens??? My mom pays at least part of her doc bill in eggs. Her physical therapist.
Devon Sinsley said:
Hey Doc,
Do you take payment in chickens??? My mom pays at least part of her doc bill in eggs. Her physical therapist.
Hi Devon,
When I first started working in east Tennessee we did barter…firewood, house washing, hand made furniture for those pesky medical bills (charged 10-12 dollars for office visit in 1981).
When I first moved to Clarksville Tennessee in 1984 I took care of a lot of woman who worked in the strip clubs at nearby Fort Campbell Ky. I did not “barter” as my wife was my first (and best) business manager. Figured that might raise a few eyebrows.
Doc Tom
Tom Grabenstein said:
Devon Sinsley said:
Hey Doc,
Do you take payment in chickens??? My mom pays at least part of her doc bill in eggs. Her physical therapist.
Hi Devon,
When I first started working in east Tennessee we did barter…firewood, house washing, hand made furniture for those pesky medical bills (charged 10-12 dollars for office visit in 1981).
When I first moved to Clarksville Tennessee in 1984 I took care of a lot of woman who worked in the strip clubs at nearby Fort Campbell Ky. I did not “barter” as my wife was my first (and best) business manager. Figured that might raise a few eyebrows.
Doc Tom
You don’t think your wife would care to have those young ladies over washing the house?
An added word of caution; Working around real rail ties, yes the creosoted kind. Always wear heavy leather gloves. If you want a splinter to go really sour in a hurry, ignore one from an old tie. Why Of course I learned that from someone else, I would never be so macho to blow it off as just a little splinter, it will be just fine. [ yah mine wasn’t even 1/4 long ]. Hurt like hell at 3:30 in the night.
Somebody I know well was building a two-storey garage beside his house and carried away with technology, was using his electric nailer like a garden hose while he fixed the overhead timbers.
Missing his space and count, and using his hand as a tape-measure, he put the next three-inch nail clean through his left pointy finger.
However, he didn’t feel a thing, until later, that is, as he reared back in a ‘whoooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa there’ reaction, banged his head on the previously-fixed beam and rendered hisself unconscious…THEN he fell through the trapdoor, breaking his collar bone on the way, and cracking a pair of ribs on a sawbuck.
He woke up on the paramedic’s stretcher as he was being put into the ambulance.
As you can imagine, we had a load of laffs at his expense.
tac
Ottawa Valley GRS
As well you should. That is deserving of a belly full. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)
Gee tac, now I really do feel better about myself. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)