(Now with pictures)okay, something CRAZY happened to me

[idarkphoenixi]

Well, this is a freaky story:

For a while now I've had this big spot on the tip if my elbow. I just figured it was a bug bite or something but it wasn't a regular bite mark, looked more like skin irritation. Sometimes I scratch it, sometimes I try popping it but nothing works. I even tried (carefully) cutting it, I know I shouldn't but it was just bothering me being there.

I didn't pay any special attention to the fact it was on my elbow, but as it so happens I broke that elbow as a child. Broke and dislocated not to be precise. It wasn't a fun ordeal to be sure but it was well over a decade ago when it happened.
Why do I bring this up? Well, upon scratching it again this morning I caught my fingers on something:
"Ahah!" I said to myself. I first thought it was some kind of ingrown hair, would make sense given how it looks like some kind of irritation. Well...It's not a hair. It's a thread, a blue one, the kind they use for stitches...

Yep, over 10 years later and my "dissolvable" stitches are still inside me. It's poking out my elbow as I speak, like a little blue sprout.

I'm not in any pain, it's more a slight discomfort and also the thought of stitches still being in me is...unnerving(I wouldn't call it a 'phobia' but I reeeeaaaally don't like having them).
It's just I'm just not sure what to do now. If I try pull it out, it might break apart and stay in my there. I can't leave it obviously but nor do I want to get cut open again just to make sure there's nothing else in there.

Guess I should end this with some kind of question, so...Give us some of your weird medical tales.

Update: With a little Irish courage and some tweezers, I believe I pulled the entire thing out. I'll remind you these stitches are well over a decade old, maybe 15 years old. Here are the following results:

Spoiler: Maybe not for squeemish

 

[vv85]

.... but the pimple was actually AN ENTIRE PACK OF FLESH EATING SPIDERS!!

 

[Wraith]

Broke my foot clean in 2 a fair few years ago now. The skin wasn't broken but the bone was clearly in 2.

Got an X-Ray about 4 months ago on it, there was literally no evidence I had ever broken it.

Clearly, you are Wolverine. Ask your doc to check your forearms for foot long spikes.

OT: That is odd. I don't have a story like that, except for maybe when I had this like, I don't know, pimple, or pocket of blood under my skin in my thigh, so I took a knife and cut it out. Made a nice juicy popping sound. When you look at the spot where I cut it, there is no scar.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I always think it's weird to wake up with injuries that I don't remember going to sleep with.

 

[Doclector]

I have a leg I can twist 180%, and I can lick my own elbow.

Wouldn't be so weird if I was double jointed, but I'm not. I'm really not. In every other respect, i'm really unflexible.

 

[tilmoph]

I cut one one of my feet on a rock swimming around in a lake when I was a kid. Got really nasty, actually looked like a huge crater in my foot. It started to look infected so I started dumping neosporin on it and ripping what i thought was pus layers off of it with a pair of tweezers I found. After a few weeks of this (a week of doing nothing, a week of neosporin, and then a couple weeks of neosporin plus tweezers), it finally occurs to me that maybe it's just a weird looking scab, because an actual infection this bad would probably have some symptoms or would have spread or something. about a week and a half later, all that remained was a scar.

Moral of the story: kids are dumb and will react stupidly to things they don't understand, especially if one of their friends mentions "fish crap in the bloodstream".

 

[Tiger King]

Well, this is a freaky story:

For a while now I've had this big spot on the tip if my elbow. I just figured it was a bug bite or something but it wasn't a regular bite mark, looked more like skin irritation. Sometimes I scratch it, sometimes I try popping it but nothing works. I even tried (carefully) cutting it, I know I shouldn't but it was just bothering me being there.

I didn't pay any special attention to the fact it was on my elbow, but as it so happens I broke that elbow as a child. Broke and dislocated not to be precise. It wasn't a fun ordeal to be sure but it was well over a decade ago when it happened.
Why do I bring this up? Well, upon scratching it again this morning I caught my fingers on something:
"Ahah!" I said to myself. I first thought it was some kind of ingrown hair, would make sense given how it looks like some kind of irritation. Well...It's not a hair. It's a thread, a blue one, the kind they use for stitches...

Yep, over 10 years later and my "dissolvable" stitches are still inside me. It's poking out my elbow as I speak, like a little blue sprout.

I'm not in any pain, it's more a slight discomfort and also the thought of stitches still being in me is...unnerving(I wouldn't call it a 'phobia' but I reeeeaaaally don't like having them).
It's just I'm just not sure what to do now. If I try pull it out, it might break apart and stay in my there. I can't leave it obviously but nor do I want to get cut open again just to make sure there's nothing else in there.

Guess I should end this with some kind of question, so...Give us some of your weird medical tales.

Not really a weird medical tale but I'll chuck my story in.
When I was at primary school we were wrestling and play fighting on the field they had for sports. we had a big bundle and I just happened to land on a guys hand and one of his fingers went right up my nose, so far infact it gave me my first nose bleed.

After it stopped bleeding and got cleaned up we had a good laugh telling this guy to stop picking my nose!!

 

[Denamic]

I have something injury related as well.

I once worked backstage on a temporary set, setting up and taking shit down. Hard work. Anyway, on the last day of work, I hit my back on something as I was lifting a spotlight. It hurt a bit, but it stopped soon enough and I went back to work. I felt more winded than I should have on my way home. I was in really good shape back then, being in a hockey team, so getting winded from walking just doesn't happen to me, but that didn't register in my mind at the time. When I got home, I had a bad headache, so I just brushed my teeth and went straight to bed.

The following day I woke up, still having a headache, in my formerly white sheets being stained red with blood, and I noticed my shirt also being practically soaked with blood. Looking in my bathroom mirror, I saw a ~10cm gash on my back and only then understood why people kept asking me if I were alright during the last hour of work.

I could have died in my sleep from blood loss and never even noticed anything was wrong.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

I stood on a rusty nail a few years back and while I didn't feel anything until I looked and removed it I nver caught anything bad from it which was lucky.

 

[Sizzle Montyjing]

Well, I went out one day with my friends to the pub, next thing you know I wake up naked in Peru, covered in blood and own half of Ecuador's gold deposits. But that's really just another Sunday now.
-----
In all seriousness, I have a massive burn down my shoulder, and a small scar on my neck from when I was 3 years old and spilt boiling tea down myself trying to be helpful. I certainly learnt my lesson, never done anything for anyone ever again. I can have my award now.

 

[Blitsie]

Didn't happen to me (thank the maker it didn't!) but I know one friend who went for a breast size reduction and about a week after surgery she removed her bandages only to have her one nipple peeled off with it, for some reason the very thought of such a thing unnerves me much more than its supposed to.

 

[DanielBrown]

I once woke up with long, bloody scratch marks on my back. Couldn't have done them myself, I wasn't drunk or with a girl the night before and we didn't have any animals in the house at the time.
Was quite intresting.

As for a real medical mystery: I have had pain in my right hip for the past 10 years, kind of like a cramp on the inside of the leg. Started when I was 13 and I had to go with crutches for around two years since the pain could be unbearable. Was at the hospital once or twice a month during that time and they could never find out what caused it.
After two years they wrote hypocondriac in my journal and I wasn't called back. Did tons of recovery training to walk normally again, but the pain still returns on occasion. Can't really run anymore.

We might have free health care in Sweden, but I'm not sure they're doing such a great job. Was also a time quite recently when I booked an appointment to try and figure out why I've been constantly tired for the past three years. Did a couple of blood and piss tests for calcium levels, diabetes and whatever. Tests came back negative and they just gave up. I didn't even get the results(had to call in to some other doctor who looked it up for me when I got sick of waiting).
Still only got about one hour per day where I don't feel like returning to bed. -_-'

 

[Amethyst Wind]

and own half of Ecuador's gold deposits. But that's really just another Sunday now.

No wonder I never win in Quito monopoly. You've got the banks!

On topic: I've got a lattice of scars on my hips that I can only fathom are from scratching in my sleep. I can't think of anything else that could cause such extensive marking.

 

[lacktheknack]

I haven't had anything really "weird" happen to mWAIT WAIT I GOT IT

I had an abscess under my arm in grade ten. I finally went to the doctor after I realized I could no longer move my arm with shooting pains. The doctor said "Well, THAT won't do", took a small knife, and that's why I can no longer eat pistachio pudding. Seriously, I didn't know things in your body could turn that color, or have chunks like that.

 

[MiskWisk]

I stood on a rusty nail a few years back and while I didn't feel anything until I looked and removed it I nver caught anything bad from it which was lucky.

I've done something similar. I stepped on a plank with a rusty nail in it and felt a pain in my foot. Lift my foot up and see a plank attached to my shoe. Cue "Oh crap" moment as I have a brief thought of putting the nail through my foot. Thankfully it was only the webbing but still.

 

[Jadak]

and own half of Ecuador's gold deposits. But that's really just another Sunday now.

No wonder I never win in Quito monopoly. You've got the banks!

On topic: I've got a lattice of scars on my hips that I can only fathom are from scratching in my sleep. I can't think of anything else that could cause such extensive marking.

By the sounds of it they're probably stretch marks. I've got something similar on my hips and inner thighs, and that's what they are, certainly looks like extensive scars.

 

[Morsomk_v1legacy]

I remember when I found out that I had two little spots on my foot that were sort of bleeding, never actually felt any pain or anything coming from the region so I always thought it was a little weird how they suddenly just showed up. A year later, the spots are still there, not bleeding or anything, they just look like a wound that hasn't fully healed itself.