A small piece of glass that was stuck in my foot has finally worked its way to the surface and I was able to remove it. I’m blogging this so that anyone who finds them self in a similar position will hopefully feel a little more confident that given some time, the glass should work its way out. Of course you should seek the help of a medical professional or try and remove the glass or splinter yourself as soon as possible, but in my case even that was not enough to get the small shard out. What follows is the details of my experience.
The small shard of glass that was stuck in my foot for 4 and a half months.
Four and a half months ago I stepped on some glass from a broken fruit juice bottle. It was in an awkward spot for me to get at so I asked a couple of my family members to see if they could get the glass out using a pin and some tweezers. They were able to remove one piece, but I could tell there was a small piece still inside the wound. So in the evening on the day it occurred, I went to the emergency room at a local hospital to get the remaining piece removed. The doctor on duty dug around in the wound for a while and after some time decided that the piece had come out whilst she was wiping the blood away from the area. I wasn’t convinced but the doctor seemed pretty sure there was no more glass in the wound.
Over the following months I experienced intermittent pain and varying degrees of discomfort coming from the area where the glass was embedded in my foot. The small hole never healed completely. I kept the wound covered with medical strips/plasters and regularly applied a disinfecting ointment and kept the area clean.
Today when I removed the medical strip covering the wound and brushed my finger across the hole, I felt something hard at the surface. I was able to grab the object between my fingernails and a small shard of glass slid out.
I am extremely relieved! Some days it was painful when I was walking around. There were times when I would feel accute pain coming from the wound as the glass cut me. This was usually when I shifted my weight in an unusual way. I have been in a tropical climate for a while now, so I was starting to get worried about the wound not healing. But hopefully it will heal up fine now that the remaing glass shard is gone. Result!
good news for me, I’ve had a chard of glass in my foot since late April, that’s 2 months now. I’m trying to decide if I should go to the doc. but don’t want to pay $60 just to walk in the door and as you, they probably won’t find it . Think I’ll just soak it again today.
Good luck with it Denet. I would still recommend going to the doctor. They have those magnifying glasses and all the right equipment, plus anesthetic
I think I was just unlucky on my visit.
Just got the tiniest piece out of the heel of my foot.Super painful to walk on ……. had been stuck in there for 2 days and already had started swelling.Dug out the dead skin around and applied pressure around the most painful part.The skin had already grown over so thats why I had to remove dead skin from around. Once you do that you can see the entry point .Keep squeezing around and around until it emerges. …….dont give up . It will come out eventually. in the end it was about the size of a pinhead.
thanks for the info. stepped on a very small piece of glass a month ago and it’s healed and hurts. i’ll try soaking it and then minor pin/tweezer surgery.
I know the original post was a long time ago. But I was hunting around online for creative ideas about removing glass shards after it finally occurred to me that the pain in my toe for the last month was a piece of glass. I should have realized this sooner, I had a piece of glass in my foot many years ago, didn’t know that it was glass, just felt discomfort. Over the course of a month, a callous formed over the area and it became infected. It was then that I went to a podiatrist, who chopped off the callous and pulled out the glass. We were both surprised. I don’t have a callous this time, but the discomfort feels the same. I’m going to do the same thing that I had to do after hand surgery, when the hand surgeon removed the stitches but left a little piece of steel inside. The wound healed over that piece of steel, and everyone thought I was crazy when I told them that something didn’t feel right, that it felt like something was inside. Finally the doctor took an x-ray and saw that little piece of metal. I had to soak my hand three times a day in hot water for months before that piece of steel moved to the surface.
I had a piece of glass in my heel about the size of the one in the picture above for over 6 years. I tried taking it out when it first went in and it just kept going deeper and everyone told me it would come out on its own if i soaked it in salt water. I did that, but the wound just heeled and disappeared and I forgot about it. It only bothered me once in a while if I stepped on something at a certain angle and it was never enough pain to go to the doctors. A couple weeks ago I started feeling it again and a small red spot appeared at the surface of my skin. I started soaking it again and after digging around with a needle, I was finally able to get the glass out of my heel. So, it is possible to have glass in your foot for years.. I guess it will make its way out eventually, but it could take a while.
Six years! Oh geez. I must admit that the soaking is going nowhere. But I also know that there will be little value in visiting a doctor, so I better be patient and stop obsessing while I continue to soak.
After reading the original story and all the replies, i know now what must be done. I was in a pretty bad car accident in late October. I spent 12 days in the hospital and was still pulling big chunks of glass out of the scabs on my scalp (i got cut by glass in a few places, glass was EVERYWHERE!) After weeks of checking myself for missed injuries and assessing the damage, i felt a knot in my arm, near my left elbow. I’m pretty sure that it is a significant chunk of glass stuck inside my arm. It gets swollen and sore if i hit it or accidentally knock it on anything. I have to be super careful with everything I do as well as making sure nobody else bumps it.
A few days ago i was sitting in a hot tub and after a while, i noticed that my arm was more swollen than I have yet to see it. This clued me in to the “hot soak helping it work its way up” technique. I think it’s time to soak it again and see how close to the skin i can bring it before I get up the nerve to make a small slit in my skin to help it out. I know how to properly sterilize and dress it after self surgery.. I just needed to read these incidents other people have been thru that are somewhat similar. If anyone has any advice on what to use to temporarily numb the half-dime sized area i’m going to have to painfully pierce, please reply with your remedy. I greatly appreciate your helpful, pain-reducing advice!
Jessica, I’m assuming you have health insurance. When the time comes, use it! In the meantime, keep soaking your arm consistently. That means everyday, at least once, twice is better.
This week, I mentioned to my primary care physician that I had a small piece of glass in my toe, that I was soaking it to draw it to the surface. She concurred that that was the appropriate thing to do; she said, what do you want, to have a doctor come and dig around beneath your skin. Well certainly not, especially if the exact location of the glass isn’t known, I don’t want a doctor digging around and I would surely cause a bigger problem if left to my own devices..Just use your very best judgement. And be sure to share an update. (Who doesn’t like a happy ending when the piece of glass is successfully retrieved.)
Would an x ray show if I do have a tiny shard of glass imbedded in the sole of my feet. Its been buried inside for 8 months now n the doc claimed he did take it out but every now n then it digs in causing acute pain n then the pain disappears completely for 2 to 3 months only to crop up again.will try soaking it .never tried that before…
Apparently glass will show up in an x-ray in some casses. Have a read of these responses to a similar question: http://www.justanswer.com/health/0a6p6-does-glass-show-x-ray.html
My shard of glass is still in my toe since October. I must admit that I gave up on soaking, it seemed fruitless. My general practitioner told me to keep soaking it, but I could tell that she really didn’t believe me when I told her that I had a piece of glass in my foot. So I doubt that she would order an x-ray. I would have to go to a podiatrist or orthopedic MD if it really started to kill me, because I wouldn’t want them to cut into my foot if it weren’t excruciating. If it doesn’t show on x-ray, they aren’t going to cut. What doctor would cut into you and then start digging around?
It’s not bothering me as much, but every now and then, if I stretch my toes a certain way, or for no reason at all, I feel that twinge. It bothers me more just knowing that I could end up spending the rest of my life with this small piece of glass in my toe.
I have a piece of glass working its way out (finally) after a science project gone wrong in 1968. A glass beaker stir rod impaled the bottom of my foot and broke off. A large piece came out about a year later, and I promptly forgot about it. About a month ago, a lump started to form on the side of my foot, which I thought was a plantars wart. I began applying acid to rid myself of the wart (yes, hurt like heck) then noticed a small hole forming. I could look into the hole and see something shiny which eventually broke through. A small shard of glass was protruding. I was able to grab it with tweezers, but it is too large to pull out. I am going to the doc this week to have it removed.
44 years – no pain, no sign of it! Amazing.
Is there something you can do to numb your foot before removing the shard, because it”s a painfull process.
Lidocaine and prilocaine cream, 2.5%. My son is diabetic and he uses this cream before putting on his pods. It helps some apply then put a bandage on till absorbed . I do this several times, it helps some. Have to have doctor prescribe though.