Self Aid

[Caduceus]

So I started this topic so people could post their injuries and the self aid that they've done on themselves. Here are a few of mine:

18 months ago; electrocution. Had just started as the groundskeeper at our library. We use an electric lawnmower and the last groundskeeper had mowed over the extension cord we use to power it. Well, the first time I was mowing, the broken cord (which had been mended with duct tape) actually pulled all the way apart. I received a bit of a secondary shock; on top of the heat exhaustion I already had, I'd been electrocuted so I just signed out and went home for the day. Not much aid in that one. -_-"

12 months ago; type three choking. I was home alone eating a peanut butter sandwich when I started choking. Type three, too. Couldn't even cough. By the time I got into the kitchen (this was before first aid was a thing for me) to get some water and dislodge the gooey sludge blocking my airway, my vision had tunneled and I couldn't see. Gulped down some water and--Presto!--I could breathe.

6 months ago; gash? Was running through the house to answer the door and my foot caught on a carpet nail about an inch out of the doorway. The ball of my foot caught on the head of the nail and I tripped. I stumbled a little bit but didn't feel anything really. Then my foot kinda started to hurt. I looked behind me and there was a trail of blood, a lot of it, behind me. Looking at my foot, I realized there was a gash about a centimeter deep torn out of my foot, just flapping there. . .I went in the bathroom and washed out the dirt. It was really painful to pull the flap back out of my foot to clean it I tore out the carpet nails soon after. . .

3 months ago; cat bite. Stupid frickin' sick kitten wouldn't let me hold her and bit my hand *A* The amount of isopropanol I poured on that puncture wound was enough to make anyone cry. . .

Well that's it! Please tell me if what I did was stupid. A lot of there are really old. . .But I wanna hear your self aid stories too!

[ERDoc]

A few years ago I was playing basketball and the ball jammed my pinky. I looked down and it was dislocated. Before the pain hit I pulled it back into place.

When my daughter was 2 she pinched her finger at a museum and split the nail horizontally. If you opened it you could see down to the bone. I did what any responsible parent would do. I wrote her a script for antibiotics and put triple antibiotic ointment on it, with a bandaid change twice a day.

I woke up in the middle of the night with the worst headache of my life (if you are not sure why this is a bad thing, google subarachnoid hemorrhage). I started puking and was terrified I had a SAH. My wife called out from the bedroom asking me if I was okay. I told her I was fine and she should go back to sleep. Once the vomiting stopped, I did what any responsible ER doctor would do, I took 800mg Motrin (if I had a head bleed I was going to make sure that my chances of survival were 0) and went back to bed, terrified that my wife wouldn't be able to wake me up in the morning.

[scubanurse]

Got a papercut at work the other night... put alcohol hand scrub on it and a paper towel... bandaid once it stopped gushing blood.

Used to sneeze and dislocate my shoulders so I learned quickly how to put them back in place, also reduce my knee caps daily.

[Just Plain Ruff]

A few years ago I was playing basketball and the ball jammed my pinky. I looked down and it was dislocated. Before the pain hit I pulled it back into place.

When my daughter was 2 she pinched her finger at a museum and split the nail horizontally. If you opened it you could see down to the bone. I did what any responsible parent would do. I wrote her a script for antibiotics and put triple antibiotic ointment on it, with a bandaid change twice a day.

I woke up in the middle of the night with the worst headache of my life (if you are not sure why this is a bad thing, google subarachnoid hemorrhage). I started puking and was terrified I had a SAH. My wife called out from the bedroom asking me if I was okay. I told her I was fine and she should go back to sleep. Once the vomiting stopped, I did what any responsible ER doctor would do, I took 800mg Motrin (if I had a head bleed I was going to make sure that my chances of survival were 0) and went back to bed, terrified that my wife wouldn't be able to wake me up in the morning.

You did not do what any responsible parent would do for your daughter Doc, you did not call 911, request that they transport her via helicopter to the nearest trauma center and you did not demand that the best trauma surgeon be called in in the middle of their golf game so they could fix your daughters issue. You then did not do what a responsible parent would do and you didn't contact a lawyer to determine what level of compensation you were entitled to because all you got for your visit to the ED was a script for an antibiotic and a bandaid.

But the other day, I gave myself a shot of insulin by mistake, The bathroom was dark, I grabbed the fast acting insulin instead of the Victoza, I turned the knob the requsite 23 clicks which is the correct amount of clicks that i turn when I give myself my victoza. Well I mistakenly gave myself 48 units of fast actin insulin and within 20 minutes I wasn't feeling too hot. So I checked my blood sugar - it was 39. I thought for a second or two to call the ambulance for some D-50 but then I said "hey, I'm a big boy who did a stupid thing" and I walked (well sort of stumbled) into the kitchen and made myself 2 peanut butter sandwiches, a big glass of milk, and 2 chocolate bars and within 15 minutes my sugar was back to normal and I felt so much better.

[Caduceus]

Oh. . .my grandfather is diabetic and he used to get hypoglycemia so bad he'd actually go to sleep in the middle of conversations. I don't mean to nitpick here, but your food choice probably wasn't the best. Chocolate and peanut butter have a lot of fiber so it takes longer for them to metabolize and to get the sugar in your blood stream. Diabetics kind of trap themselves by not having many sugary foods in the house, I notice with my grandpa, so when they get too low, they don't have something they can just eat.

My grandpa has the glucose pills, but doesn't carry them. I was thinking the other day if he got too low, I'd probably like to give him so hard candy. The only hard candy in the house is sugar free.

[scubanurse]

Actually a PB&J is a pretty standard meal because not only will it get the sugars up it will help sustain the levels because of the carbohydrates. Milk and chocolate will act quickly and the PB&J sandwich will prevent the levels from dropping right back off.

[Just Plain Ruff]

Oh. . .my grandfather is diabetic and he used to get hypoglycemia so bad he'd actually go to sleep in the middle of conversations. I don't mean to nitpick here, but your food choice probably wasn't the best. Chocolate and peanut butter have a lot of fiber so it takes longer for them to metabolize and to get the sugar in your blood stream. Diabetics kind of trap themselves by not having many sugary foods in the house, I notice with my grandpa, so when they get too low, they don't have something they can just eat.

My grandpa has the glucose pills, but doesn't carry them. I was thinking the other day if he got too low, I'd probably like to give him so hard candy. The only hard candy in the house is sugar free.

Ok Dr Caduceus, just tell me what kind of food I need to have in my house. Are you advocating that I treat my low blood sugar with sugary stuff such as candy and the like? Wouldn't doing that cause a initial spike in blood sugar and then after the initial sugar spike there is a responding drop that can at times be even lower which is a bad thing

So a peanut butter sandwich (and yes there was jelly on it - I use that wording synonymously) which was to provide long term sugar replacement and the chocolate and milk was to provide quick sugar replacement. I am one diabetic that has sugary foods in the house but I can tell you that I'm not going to dose myself on sugar to counteract my low blood sugar without having something long term to counterbalance it.

Trust me, this food that I ate that night was exactly the food that my Endocrinologist recommended if I were to have this sort of problem. And my endocrinologist works at one of the top 20 Diabetes and endocrinology clinics in the country.

[Caduceus]

Sorry! My instructor told me no choco/peanut butter but obviously you got this down. . Sorry for acting like I knew something more! After scuba's explanation makes way way more sense. I'm certainly not a doc I just feel like I have nothing to contribute here. . .

I'm going to remember this for future ref since apparently the instructor didn't know what she was talking about. Thanks for the correction.

Edited October 24, 2013 by Caduceus

[Just Plain Ruff]

Sorry! My instructor told me no choco/peanut butter but obviously you got this down. . Sorry for acting like I knew something more! DX After scuba's explanation makes way way more sense.

Please don't think I was angry, it might have come off that way but yes, as a diabetic who still does stupid things, I have a set way of doing things and there is a specific menu. We actually have a low blood sugar box in our pantry that if I get low I jsut go to it. It has a jar of peanut butter, a jar of yummy grape jelly, a box of chocolate and glasses for the milk. I also have a diabetic medical kit in that box such as insulin, glucagon and some other items. My wife and my son are both trained in how to administer the glucagon and soon my 4 year old daughter will be trained to give the glucagon shot as well.

I have never been below the number I was in my previous post and that was due to a mistake by myself, i normally go low when I don't eat and I have never been below 60 except that one time but you can never be too safe right?

The diabetic box will go with us if we ever need to use our bug out bag's for a disaster as well, but I have a separate medical kit as well in the bug out kit.

But I was not mad at your post.

[scubanurse]

So generally the first line of treatment (besides the really gross glucose paste) is OJ and you can add sugar to it. That's if they can swallow and maintain their airway though. Then we'll usually try and get them to eat PB&J, bread, yogurt, or fruit.

There's medical interventions, but if the patient can do this without having to give icky glucagon or D50 then that is preferred. Even when we would give glucagon or D50 once they came to, we would make them eat a sandwich to prevent the drop off Capt talked about.