Home remedies · Skin, wounds & stings
No home remedy here replaces treatment, and none is talked down. What has done good for generations does good — even if no one ever measured it. Where something is well studied, it says so. Where it is only experience, it says that too.
Wash hands and tweezers, pull the splinter out in the same direction it went in, then clean and cover.
In the entry direction the splinter slides along its own channel; sideways it breaks and leaves pieces behind.
A deep or broken splinter belongs in professional hands — digging makes the wound bigger than the splinter was.
Do not remove glass, metal, splinters under the nail or anything in the eye yourself. With redness, swelling or pus after a day or two see a doctor.
See a doctor: wounds that gape, bleed heavily or are deep, bite wounds, burns larger than your own palm or with blisters on the face and joints. Likewise redness spreading quickly, especially with fever. And any mole that changes.