Helping my hands

[giglet]

This month I've been trashing my hands every time I do work on the houses. It's worse in the winter because my hands get numb and then I am both clumsier and don't realize that I've hurt myself until I see blood. Wearing gloves helps, but clearly not enough.

My specific problem today is: one thumb nail is broken, below the quick, and I need a better way of protecting it than the improvised bandaid-and-masking-tape thimble (thumble?) that I've been using. I've trimmed the rest of the nail short and superglued the cut portion so that it won't rip any more.

But the rough edge keeps catching on things if I don't have it covered, and the superglue adds to the roughness if I get it near the edge.

If I leave it uncovered, stuff touches the exposed part of my nailbed and that hurts.

But the thumble gets really dirty really quickly. I end up having to replace it every day, and washing the thumb is not much fun either.

So my question is two-fold:
Does anyone have a good solution for protecting my thumb?
Does anyone have suggestions to doing less harm to my hands? (I'm willing to entertain suggestions of specific types of gloves, since, like I said, my thick leather gloves or thin waterproof nitrile gloves are clearly not doing the job well enough.)

Comments

[rainbow]

i sometimes cut a finger (or thumb) off a nitrile or vinyl glove and put it over the affected digit, securing with bandage tape (or a bandage). it doesn't get so dirty as a bandage and is waterproof, so i can wash my hands as needed.

[giglet]

Blinks.

(I am embarrassed that I didn't think of that myself.)

Thank you.

[rainbow]

(no worries!! i didn't think of it on my own; my mother was an ER nurse all her life and it was one of the things she taught me growing up. using bits of gloves, how to snip and fold over bandage tape to make homemade suture strips, and how to remove my own stitches have been things that have served me very well.)

and you're very welcome!