Yeah, I know, not my smartest move. Ironically, I slipped while opening another pack of chisels with a dull one that was about to be "retired" because it was a cheap POS.

4 stitches, and partial numbness in the pad/tip of my left index finger. Didn't reach the bone, but I did hit myself just above the crease for the joint.

Ortho guy (not the same surgeon who did all 6 of my carpal/cubital tunnel surgeries, but a competent hand surgeon nonetheless, both employed by Campbell Clinic here) said when they took the stitches out that there's the possibility of the nerve being cut/damaged, or (more likely) signals traveling along the nerve could be simply getting choked out by swelling. My options were to: A) wait it out and see what comes back, or B) let them open my finger back up to visually inspect (and repair if necessary) the nerve (we went with Option A).

While I wouldn't be surprised by ending up with at least some damage, given the pins-and-needles, itching and pain I've gradually begun to experience over the course of the past week (today was the worst by far) I'd say the doc was dead on.

Suddenly I'm glad that "my" surgeon put me on gabapentin for the lingering pain along my ulnar and median nerves. I shudder to think what I'd be feeling without it right now.

I'm also very grateful that I wasn't using one of my "good" chisels.

Now, if the damned wound would stop breaking open and oozing, that'd be great.

At least my insurance deductible was already paid.

The pain fades.
My chisel stopped in the bone of my left index finger.
Pain stopped in about 2 weeks. I think it took a month or so before the tingle sensetivity stopped.
15 years later nothing. Yep I cut a few nerves. No feeling at all in the last 1/2" side of my finger.

 
I did that once, still have the v-shaped scar to prove it. It was 40 or so years ago, I was using a very long, very stout, mortising chisel, pushing on it by hand (no mallet), because it pared the sides of a pre-drilled mortise quite well. I literally had my shoulder into it. The left hand was down near the edge to keep repositioning it. Oops. Several stitches. It no longer bothers me, though. I had to look just now to see that the scar is still there.
 

Ouch! I hate it when I do stuff like that.

Hope it heals fast.

Hope you heal up ok. And thank you for excluding pics!

I sawed into my left thumb several years ago. All the way to the bone. Had lingering nerve pain/numbness/tingling/electric jolts for several weeks afterwards. I was concerned for a while that I was going to need surgery, but it eventually did go away, and everything got back to 100%.

Give it time.

You shouldn't have done that.

I like sharp things myself. And I get complacent or I don't think. Only after it happens do I acknowledge, "Well, that was a dumb thing to do."

Here's hoping no nerve damage for you.

"Dumbass". This is the exact thing I hear all my inner voices EVERY time I do similar things, which is far too often.

Take care heal up, train for the next time.

I cut my left index finger off at the second knuckle in 2006. The genius that did the surgery wrapped all the nerve endings into the tip so now if I bump it even on toilet paper it brings me to my knees.

So, could be worse hope you heal up whole!

what, no pics? Hope you recover completely! at least it wasn't your trigger finger, eh?

Reminds me:
I was opening one of my wife's birthday presents with my knife, package on my leg, cutting toward my thigh, and a friend looked and then started laughing - talking about how he had hurt his back on christmas eve, so the docs in the ER gave him pain killers and muscle relaxants because it was muscular, not spinal or anything too serious. but the next day was christmas, so when he was opening a package (just as I was) he was just slightly-enough out of control with the muscle relaxants, that he slipped and stabbed the knife straight into his thigh (not terribly deep, but deep enough, he said)- but since he was on all the drugs, he just looked at it and laughed.

After having suffered many cuts over the years I now head for the Kitchen any time I get something packed on one of those infernal blister packs. Not so I can use a 9 inch Chefs knife on that package but instead so I can use a pair of bone cutting Kitchen Shears on that blister pack. BTW, I've tried tin snips and they are just too bulky. However a set of Kitchenaid boning shears are maneuverable AND have the sharpness and leverage to go through a blister pack like butter.

To top it all off, apparently today consists of an impromptu rear brake job. Highest quality level Duralast ceramic pads burnt up on me in 20 months and under 20k miles. Metal on metal on one side, the rest have just a few mm left on them. I'm pissed.

I can handle blister packs. The secret to getting it with a knife isn't pressure to stab through, but multiple low pressure passes to fatigue the material, then it just folds when I yank on it.

These were Kobalt chisels. They use some weird packaging where the chisel is held snug in an open cradle of sorts, then there's a clamping mechanism down at the bottom that you're supposed to cut through. Sometimes you can get it without cutting, which is what I tried to do.

I'm grateful that it's healing the way it is. It could have been much worse, it could have been one of the Japanese chisels I've been courting. All of my chisels are shaving sharp, but those things take it to a new level.

Well, fuck. Now I'm replacing the caliper too. Today ain't my day.

Man that had to hurt bad..

Got a metal splinter in my index finger many years ago at work. Nurse at work poked at it with a sharp tool, but did not get it.
Went to the Doctor several days later. He got it out. Few days later infected.
Few days later the pain was so great I could do nothing but shake with pain. Back then hard narcotics was prescribed..good for a day.
Blood poisoning set in. Got surgery on it.
The assholes at work gave me a hard time about missing work because of an operation all because their nurse could not get the splinter out.
If my supervisor had gotten me gloves like I had asked for, I would not have gotten the splinter in the first place. I should have been out on workmans comp.

Take care it does not get infected..

I, too, have a chisel scar. Base of thumb. Took about 10 years for mostly full feeling to come back. Control and motion were fine, just felt dead most of the time.

Clamps. Wonderful things. My reminder to use one.

quote:

Originally posted by billnchristy:
I cut my left index finger off at the second knuckle in 2006. The genius that did the surgery wrapped all the nerve endings into the tip so now if I bump it even on toilet paper it brings me to my knees.

So, could be worse hope you heal up whole!

Okay, I got it pretty good, then. No amputations, either planned or unplanned, for me, and no surgeries just yet (hoping not needed; I'm getting really tired of needing surgery - if it happens, it'll be #8 since January 2015).

I like to joke that I have the fine motor coordination of a potato on the best days (really extremely frustrating; most of the time I'm pretty close to normal for most people, which is a few notches before where I was before I started getting carpal/cubital tunnel symptoms, plus now I have a time limit on things like writing by hand and turning a screwdriver), so I need all the sensation I can get.

I'm quite terrified of infection. Mom has MRSA colonized in her back, so I've seen first hand what that can do to a person.

Hope you make a speedy recovery.
Lucky you don't take a blood thinner.

quote:

Originally posted by vulrath:
To top it all off, apparently today consists of an impromptu rear brake job...

Replacing the front pads on my truck a few years ago, my thumb slipped while pushing a replacement pad on - right into one of those sharp metal brake shims. I didn't think it was too deep at the time, but haven't had feeling in the tip of my thumb since.

I spent seven or eight years making solid carbide cutting tools on 5 and 6 axis CNC machines. While drills and end mills can cut you when running wood routers, with their high rake and relief angles, you could plan on getting cut. I finally took and administrative position with the company to save my hands!

Ouch. A couple of months ago, I got 2 of my fingers tangled with a pair of hedge clippers. It looked like someone split me down to the bone 3/4 of the way around the finger. It's healed pretty nicely, but I doubt I'll ever have feeling in the tip of the worst one again, and I'm not sure if that fingernail will ever come in right again.