Slivers have always felt like a DIY kind of problem. As a kid I remember hating them and crying as my mom would pull them out with tweezers. As a teen I remember hearing people talk about how they just need to be encouraged to come out on their own with different types of packs or by pushing on and manipulating the skin. At that age usually the only slivers I got were pretty close to the surface without me even needing tweezers to pull them out. Just a day ago I was moving our wooden side table and out of the blue this little table bit me! I know that sounds funny, but that's how it felt. I had a very large gash right through the inside of my knuckle. Yes, it was bleeding, and in the middle of it was the largest sliver I have ever had going the deepest I've ever seen. I couldn't fully straighten my finger. I also couldn't fully bend it. I was fatally wounded... Oh you better believe I yelped like a wounded puppy, this hurt!
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Sliver Damage to My Middle Finger... Ouch!
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I started off wishing I had a potato because potato packs are very useful in situations like this with drawing stuff out. No potatoes in the house so I did the next best thing. I soaked it in epsom salt water with a drop of Lavender essential oil. It really reduced the pain and the swelling. I cut open some extra skin to try to get the sliver. No such luck, it wasn't even close to the surface. That night I packed a cotton ball with epsom salt water on my finger. It helped the pain through the night but didn't get that sliver any closer to coming out. In the morning I cut a little more trying to get the sliver still with no success. Asking my mom for help, she recommended packing it with a slice of lemon to draw it and any toxins that could cause infection out. It stung a little but only for a few seconds. This reduced the swelling even more and helped increase my fingers ability to straighten. I still could not bend my finger very well and whenever I took a break from soaking or packs the pain was unbearable. Not to mention the redness around the wound was growing. Finally, as I was talking to my dear friend that I work to teach about essential oils with, I asked her if she thought my next step was to go to the doctor. She said a bunch of things I knew for milder slivers and then said I should google slivers and DoTerra because there were oils that would help my body push out the sliver. I swear that I almost always go to my essential oils first because they tend to work better then any of the other remedies I can find, be they herbal or medicinal, but this time I hadn't even thought of that for some reason.
The DIY remedy that worked:
So after that phone call I didn't want to turn my computer on, so I just went into my bathroom opened my medicine cabinet where I keep a lot of my essential oils, and looked at them. I have learned that knowing a few properties of oils helps, but in the end if we feel drawn to a certain scent of essential oil, we usually need it for either our physical or our emotional health, since they help both. I have seen many times that when even other oils were not quite what I needed to heal, Helichrysm essential oil has that extra boost of power to kick start my body. I saw it in the cupboard, was immediately drawn to use it, and dropped 1 drop right onto my wound, undiluted. Within a couple minutes I decided to try to pull out some sliver. A little shard had surfaced so I tweezered it out. Then I cut a new opening for a deeper part of sliver I could see emerging and I squeezed the skin together. It was like my body was all of the sudden pushing it out because enough was coming that I could now grab it with the tweezers too. The sliver was the biggest my hubby had ever seen in someone like that. I could immediately bend my finger again. We put a drop of Melaleuca essential oil on it to disinfect after the fact. Its the morning after and my finger feels fantastic! Thank you Helichrysm... You saved me when I had a bad burn, a cut that didn't want to heal, and now with this sliver. You are a great friend to have in my first aid kit!
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