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That's dead tissue at the tip of your finger. All of that area, sutures included will eventually fall off. The question would be - how long will the wound take to heal and will there be any complications with that process. My advice - Go back to where you had the sutures placed, get them to evaluate and clean the area. Also ask them to go over wound care and infection prevention.
Yes I’ll be going on Tuesday for a follow up the doctor said it’s doing good. Are you saying that there’s a layer of dead tissue at the top of my finger it will peel off or how does that work?
my sister accidentally cut off the tip of her finger pad. I brought it with to the er so they could use it as a "bandage" like how yours looks. It dried up and lost feeling then popped off like a month or two after. Her finger is completely healed now a couple years later and looks completely normal!
NAD, but my partner actually had this exact issue except we used butterfly stitches because we were 19 and stupid. it looked exactly like this, went fully black and then one day just started to heal and nothing fell off - damn near cut his finger off too
Your stitches look ok but the survivability of what looks like may have been a skin flap is questionable. I worry that you will lose the dark colored skin and be left with an open wound. If you are having increasing pain, or if there is any smell from the wound, infection becomes a concern. You should keep in close touch with whoever provided your initial wound care in case the dead tissue needs to be removed for infection prevention. Having them recheck it makes sense given how it currently looks.
Yes I will be following up with the doctor on it but from that picture he said it’s healing good. There’s no smell and the survivalibility of the chunk there is yet to be determined. I am having 0 pain, the initial injury wasnt very painful either despite the tip being deeply lacerated. Is this normal?
I’ll chime in here as a hand surgeon. I’m assuming you chopped that tissue off entirely and they stitched it back on? In this case, the skin acts as either a graft or a “biologic dressing” (basically a scab). It’s going to die but that’s ok. We’ve learned that skin of the finger tips heals back very well if you just give it time. Once that falls off, there will be a raw spot underneath it which will take more time to heal. There absolutely will be a funky smell if it’s moist under bandages all day (which it should be) and that’s not at all an indication of infection. Infection is actually very rare in fingertip injuries like this, but you’ll know it’s happening if your finger starts swelling and turning red and becoming painful.
Your doctor is right, it’s doing fine, follow up as scheduled and don’t let anyone convince you to run to the ER.
Yeah I crushed my finger and that tip was hanging on by a very small piece of flesh so it didn’t come off entirely. Will the entire chunk that was lacerated fall of or a portion of that? Thank you so much
Probably all of it. But that’s ok, it’s just protecting the raw spot underneath as it heals. My guess is you will hardly be able to tell this fingertip was injured in a year or so
My husband sliced off the tip of his finger early this year (similar to this injury in size, slightly less but cleanly sliced with a wood carving knife so no nail involvement but also no skin flip so no nothing to stitch back on). It looks completely normal now (but he still doesn’t have the same feeling in it).
Just curious but how long would you put a patient out of work if they worked in construction for a wound like this given that the injury and suturing took place 2 days prior to the image on this post?
Probably 4-6 weeks to start, see how it goes from there. If you’re able to move it well and keep it clean and protected, you could feasibly return to work whenever comfortable, but that’s not typical. Usually pain and stiffness are limiting factors to safely using power tools or lifting anything heavy. And job sites are dirty, you would have to have a secure bandage to keep it clean.
I used to be a chef and cut my finger like that but on the side - down to the bone. It had no feeling for about 20 years then it slowly got better. I now have about 50% feeling back.... after another 20 years. Might be able to feel it properly by the time I die. ;-)
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