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Saturday I was helping a friend move a large potted tree. My hands were under the pot on my side, my friend lifted his side, the pot rolled on my finger. My initial reaction was to yank my hand out which resulted in me pulling out the entire fingernail well beyond the cuticle on my right middle finger. It was still attached on each side though. At the ER they removed the whole thing and then slid it back in to use it as sort of a splint or a guide to help the new one grow back. Makes me queasy writing this.
My question for anybody that has done this is what did you wear on your finger to swim? I guess I just need a large finger cot combined with a splint? This is not what I needed two weeks before the Victoria 1/2.
OUCH!!!
That being said, I have done this, then did an IM about a week later. I used the blister bandage on it, like second skin, for race day, and surprisingly it stayed on! If you can, that is not a bad way to go. It doesn't take long for the skin on the nailbed to heal up enough to keep it from being painful to the touch. My problem was the 1/2 inch of skin that was taken off above the cuticle. It took a few weeks to write without pain (it was my right index finger). The splint might be something you can skip on raceday, but if the skin hasn't healed enough to allow it to be open to the elements, cover it with something that you can take off your finger quickly if it starts to unravel, and maybe put some neosporin over it as a last line of defense if the tape falls off. Elastikon (sp) athletic tape worked well for me in the week of training prior to the race. Ask an athletic trainer, they know just what kind of tape I mean (they can show you how to tape it, for sure). My nail has no deformity on it now, but for a couple of years it had a rippled texture to it, so maybe the splint would have prevented that, I don't know.
"Maybe you should just run faster..." TM