Removing splinters

[farrijc]

My 4 year old has a splinter on the bottom of her foot, it's pretty big but not very close to the surface so we're having a hard time getting to it. Any brilliant suggestions? She let me pick at it for a few minutes the first time around, but now she's thrashing around so much that my husband and I can barely hold her down enough to even hold her foot still much less try to remove the splinter...

[Tracyfish]

I saw this on Pinterest, but I've never tried it.

[ajoyfulheart]

Poor thing Splinters are so annoying!! Wiki has a few ideas I have never tried before, but want to...the black drawing salve sounds interesting...kind of dark ages...lol

http://www.wikihow.com/Remove-a-Splinter

[thompsonc2007]

I have heard that potatoes will draw splinters out. Here is alibi with several suggestions. Hope you get it out soon those things can be tough

http://m.wikihow.com/Remove-a-Splinter

[glumirk]

Just checking, but are you sure it's a splinter? What I thought was a splinter ended up being a painful planters wart (gross, I know!). They are horrible to get rid of.

If it is a splinter, we had to wait for our 3 year old to go to sleep when he had one. :/

[farrijc]

Yes, I'm sure. She went to a pool party yesterday and got it from walking barefoot on the deck I thought about trying when she's asleep but I'm afraid it would be traumatic if she woke up while I was working on it. If I have to resort to a needle to break the skin, that's probably what I'll do, though.

[Jen22]

Really bad ones -- I usually have them soak in a tub of warm/hot water. Gets the skin to soften and the pores to open up more. Sometimes that's all it took. It would come out in the water, or it was able to be kinda pushed out (if that makes sense) after a while. If anything, it could help to loosen it and maybe one of the other links that were shared can work with it the soaking to get it out.

If all else fails - can you go to an urgent clinic or something? Seems drastic, but I almost had to do that once when my son pulled his hand on a weed that was dead and so he got multiple slivers in his hand that was more than I could handle. The warm bath ended up being the trick to get them out, so in the end, I didn't go - but I almost did.

[Sarah8914]

When I was little, my mom would use hydrogen peroxide to help get it out.... there have been a few times with my girls that we just waited a few days and it worked its way out.

[thompsonc2007]

Originally Posted by Sarah8914

When I was little, my mom would use hydrogen peroxide to help get it out.... there have been a few times with my girls that we just waited a few days and it worked its way out.

Sometimes waiting a day or two will allow the splinter to fester (sounds gross but it helps). Your body is actually trying to push it out. Our bodies natural reaction is to attack the foreign body so it might get hot and a little red. But if after it festers and you still can't get it...you probably need to get the doctor involved. I say this only because I had one years ago in my teens and let it go and ended up having to have my finger lanced and cleaned out. It really was not that big of a deal but it could have been avoided.

[farrijc]

I'm going to try soaking it tonight. I'm leery of hydrogen peroxide because there's some torn skin where it went in and I think that would sting pretty bad. Right now it still looks good. If it gets worse, I won't hesitate to take her to the doctor - honestly, I'd rather the trauma be there than at home!