How To: Remove a Ring From a Swollen Finger

Have you ever woken up with a swollen ring finger for whatever reason and then had a major tiny freak out when you couldn't get your ring off? Yep. Happened to me a few days ago.

Apparently I got a mosquito bite on my knuckle one night and when I woke up a couple of days later half of my hand was swollen including my ring finger. You can't see it very well in that photo but it was really bad! My engagement ring came off with a little soap and some tugging but my wedding ring refused to come off. I tried ice, soap, lotion, everything I could think of and it wouldn't budge. I started to worry that I would have to get it cut off. I decided that one way or another that ring had to come off just in case I woke up the next morning and it was even more swollen. So I googled it (seriously, what in the world did we do before search engines?) and found a life-saver of an article at eHow. If you ever find yourself in this unfortunate position, here is a great way to get out of it:

Step 1: Wrap a piece of scotch tape around your finger starting just above the ring and going past the knuckle. You want it snug but don't make it so tight that you completely loose circulation. Wait about 30 minutes.

Step 2: With the tape still on, put an ice pack on your finger (it helps if it's Spiderman. Just sayin') and hold your hand above your heart. Leave it on for 15 minutes. Side note: I put my ice pack in the freezer when I first started the process so it had only been in there for about half an hour. This made it really cold but it was still kind of slushy instead of solid. That way I was able to wrap it around the entire finger instead of just laying it on one side.
Step 3: Unwrap the tape and spray some windex on your finger (all I could think of during this part was the dad on My Big Fat Greek Wedding who's solution for everything was to put windex on it!). Then use one of those rubber grip pads to grab the ring and pull it off. Wash your hands with soap to get the windex off.
It still took some tugging and probably would have hurt a little more if my finger wasn't already slightly numb from the ice. It worked though and I was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief! All of this went on when my husband was out of town on business. While we were texting each other I mentioned the whole ring ordeal and of course his response was something along the lines of, "Sure. I leave town for a few days and you just happen to get a bite on your finger and "need" to take your wedding ring off. Right." Butthead. :p This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting Polish The Stars.