Carefully pull it in the direction from which it entered. Use sterilized tweezers that are sharp. Don’t apply too much pressure to the glass shard to avoid crushing it into smaller pieces. If you don’t have a steady hand, try having a friend remove the glass. After removal, thoroughly wash the area with soap and running water.
Use a small needle dipped in alcohol to remove the splinter. Before removing the splinter, make sure that the area is cleansed using an antiseptic solution such as alcohol or betadine. With the help of the needle, you can carefully and gently dislodge the glass. Then you can fully remove it with a pair of tweezers. After, wash the area thoroughly with soap and water.
This should be done twice a day. Soaking will soften and loosen the skin, and draw the splinter to the surface. The glass may eventually work its way out of your skin after several days.
If the glass or the splinter is found under a fingernail, it will be difficult to remove without medical tools. This should be removed right away because it can cause the presence of infection. If you experience the formation of pus, unbearable pain (8 out of 10 on the pain scale), tenderness, swelling, or redness you may be suffering from an infection and need antibiotics prescribed by a doctor. If the glass shards are exceptionally large, they might affect sensation or movement and it could even cause nerve and blood vessel damage. If you have previously removed glass from the wound, but the area is inflamed, there may be fragments retained under the skin that should be examined by a doctor.
Children may move around and cause themselves further injury during the removal process. This is why it is best to have the glass removed by a doctor or other medical professional. Having the child in a safe and controlled environment will expedite removal and make it much less risky.
Sometimes when you try to remove glass at home, it can break into smaller pieces and fragment within your skin. In case this happens and there are fragments left, go to the nearest emergency department right away so that a doctor can remove what is left. Additionally, if glass is deeply embedded in the skin an anesthetic agent must be applied to ensure a painless removal.
In cases where the glass is embedded deeply, an ultrasound, CT scan, or an MRI is usually ordered to provide a better view of the affected area. Large splinters or glass shards that have deeply penetrated require a CT scan or an MRI to determine if has caused damage to your bones, nerves, or blood vessels. An x-ray might also be ordered to determine the location of the splinter within you before removal.
A surgeon will usually make an incision from the point where the glass entered. A surgical clamp will be used to carefully spread the surrounding tissue. Glass from your wound can then be removed using either alligator forceps (basically surgical tweezers). If the glass has penetrated too deeply, the tissue will have to be dissected in order to access it for removal.
