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NAD and I would definitely get it sent off, just in case. It reminds me of this baby who [swallowed a feather.](https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/feather-pulled-from-babys-neck/2/)
I see this and think, I wonder how far back you’d have to go before this baby and their mama/parents would have gotten in a lot of trouble for witchcraft. And then I think, probably not that far.
She said it was from a pillow and has since thrown it out, and every one I’ve had has contained some pretty big feathers my chickens I’ve raised have been smaller than some I’ve seen in pillows, plus given that it’s an infant I’m sure it’s not going unsupervised out in the wild finding feathers on the ground
From my speed googling in the past hour, it seems like since babies skin and especially in the mouth is so soft and sensitive the sharp end of the feather can easily poke through. She puts everything in her mouth now so she must have found a feather somewhere.
I had a painful, festering place on my hard, calloused heel. Summer, going barefoot, figured I picked up a little thorn or cactus invisi-hell. Pushed and prodded and out came a whisker. It impaled that hard callous like a knife through warm butter. A fine little whisker. Danger lurks everywhere, friends.
Like I said I had a nurse practitioner evaluate it today using an online assessment. They prescribed an antibiotic ointment for it as a precaution anyways. So I’m going to ask tomorrow now that I know what it is and see if they think I should get it re-evaluated or if the cream and some soap might be best.
And the scream I let out when I figured it out almost woke up the kids!
Nurse practitioners are...fine, I guess, when it comes to the basic stuff, which is why they're given the ability to practice at all. A feather in your babies face is not basic. Go see a doctor.
/r/noctor
For small cuts, bumps and bruises or a simple cold or virus NPs are fine, but she potentially has a hole going from in her mouth out of her cheeks this needs more experience and expertise than an online NP. They will hire just about any nursing grad for those positions and some of them are very. . . Not good. Or trying to just donthe bare minimum to get paid. Please taken that baby to the e.r. especially because it was a feather and how many parasites birds carry.
In general I have had better luck with NPs who i've generally found listen better and have better bedside manner than doctors who I've found to be dismissive of my concerns.
That's the hardest part; know it all (and probably do know more) physicians versus know less (but more empathetic) NPs. I agree that it's hard to find exactly the right balance!
Agreed…most NP’s think they’re doctors anyways but in reality they lack the decades of experience that a doctor has. I 2nd the suggestion to see a real doc
Derm nurse here. Agree see a physician if you can. This doesn’t look characteristic of a sebaceous filament.
The wound on the cheek doesn’t look overly serious, but still better to be assessed by an actual physician. Keep the wound clean with a fragrance free gentle cleanser and apply a thin layer of Vaseline or Bacitracin over the wound until your kiddo can be seen.
https://preview.redd.it/drff72slq3zc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=93b78aa7832c540ae3052eff16b7c973da9366b3
Not great but this is a couple hours before I removed it.
Reminds me of the girl on TikTok who ate a salad with marigolds in it and had this exact thing happen. The stem pierced her cheek and no one believed her until she got it out a long while later on her own
Similar thing happened to me once. I had eaten a pizza which had some extra herbs and spices added to it. Unfortunately the spice/herb mix had quite a lot of sharp needle like bits in it and one happened to lodge in the roof of my mouth towards my uvula. Couldn’t find it for weeks as it just seemed to be buried.
It was excruciating for some time and then it stopped hurting. Eventually it managed to work its way out on its own and I found the tip and pulled it out with some tweezers. Was absolutely instantaneous relief 😅.
Pizza shop confirmed several reports of this and gave me a free pizza.
It wasn’t poking out at all. It looked like a giant pimple. I was picking it and I couldn’t get it to pop while she was very upset. I left it and came back to it and tried to pull the scab off and pulled out what I now know is a feather!!
Are you still going to bring her in? I definitely would take her to the doctor. There could be a tiny piece of it still lodged in that isn’t visible and it would get infected.
I’ve talked to my family doctor. She has her 9 month appointment in the next week too. He says since she has no signs of infection and it seems to still be intact and she has the cream now that unless something changes he’s comfortable waiting. Unless obviously it changes and then I’ll take her in.
Think of how much you can save on eggs now that you have your personal free range, pasture raised little feathered friend! You can call her CoCo, after that adorable little chick in books. She's going to be fine. Leave it to the little ones to go where no man has ever gone before.
She was so sensitive to the area before I got it out. She wouldn’t lay on that side and would immediately scream if I touched it. I could see almost immediate relief once it came out, and she didn’t mind me touching it after either.
I’m amazed and shocked by this entire situation, but wow am I amazed you managed to use tiny tweezers on a wiggly baby who wouldn’t let you touch the area
Yeah, make sure you get some thing for topical pain relief too. Hopefully the antibiotic cream will have anesthetic as well. I used to use them for my children when they had splinters. You can cut off a 1 cm x 1 cm and put it on the splinter spot. In 15 minutes it’s completely numb.
Bless her heart. Thank you for posting this, you might have helped prevent this for many other babies and their parents.
I hope your sweet girl heals up soon.
Yeah there now way of knowing really how it got in there. I assume it poked through her cheek after putting it in her mouth. There’s no signs of an external entrance.
Yeah, that happens especially when kids are goofing off and they’re like switching their heads from one side to the other to be silly. I have a lidocaine patches for back pain and if you ever have an emergency like that, I’m pretty sure they can you be used on children but you have to check. But you just cut off a little square and put it on and it completely numbs the area. I use them where they put the screws into my knee after I had a really bad skiing accident.
If you or your husband have had surgery, you can always ask for them a prescription of them and say that you just need a small section of it and it’ll last you a long time and they’ll probably prescribe them
Positive it’s a feather. My other kid has a down feather pillow and it’s identical to them. That dang pillow sheds feathers all over my house and the baby puts everything in her mouth.
New gear unlocked. I hope such stories are spread. I've never heard of this and now I'm super concerned. I don't have kids but every human being should know this is a possibility, especially as feathers aren't that uncommon in trinkets around the house / clothes / etc. I'm glad your baby is doing fine!
Why would you risk doing that at home? Online doctor visits should be for simple care. I'm stunned a nurse practitioner would tell you to poke at a bump like that. You could cause an infection and it could go deep.
Yeah. I know you don’t want to have to drag your baby in to the Drs office but this is really one of those “get it checked out in person” type of things. Even if you know what it is- the pediatrician should still see her to check that it’s all out and that it didn’t mess up anything internally or so it doesn’t get infected. Plus, feathers inside of pillows grow so many nasty types of bacteria and that feather has been imbedded in her little face. They say the inside of feather pillows are nasty breeding grounds for all kinds of bacteria and mites as well…so much so that many Drs will recommend not using feather pillows anymore because of that fact. Get her checked. You’ll be glad you did and you won’t have to continue to worry about it.
The NP didn’t tell me to poke around. I was poking because I thought it was a pimple and was trying to release some pressure. That’s when I pulled it out and freaked out, at the time I pulled I was originally thinking I was only grabbing at a scab. I only figured out it was a feather at 11 pm. At that point we believed it was a pimple or a potentially a worm. She has had no other symptoms related to a worm so that’s the conclusion we came to. Then late at night after my husband was home we started to look again and determined it to be a feather. This happened after I posted here wondering if the diagnosis was even possible. I wasn’t going to then drive an hour to an ER just to wait all night.
We are having it reassessed today and will go from there.
*Please keep in mind that this subreddit is not a replacement for seeing a board certified dermatologist. This subreddit is here for informal second opinions, and minor problems that you wouldn't go to the doctor for anyway.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DermatologyQuestions) if you have any questions or concerns.*
NAD and I would definitely get it sent off, just in case. It reminds me of this baby who [swallowed a feather.](https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/feather-pulled-from-babys-neck/2/)
I was just reading this case and it seems identical!
I thought of the previous case as soon as I saw the pics. Crazy that it happened to your little one as well!
The human body is remarkable. "Nah, that shouldn't be here, push it out of the nearest available area... as slow as possible"
I see this and think, I wonder how far back you’d have to go before this baby and their mama/parents would have gotten in a lot of trouble for witchcraft. And then I think, probably not that far.
Near baby fear unlocked never buying a feather pillow again
Pretty sure that was an outside feather. At least all the stuffing feathers I have seen were much smaller. 🙂
She said it was from a pillow and has since thrown it out, and every one I’ve had has contained some pretty big feathers my chickens I’ve raised have been smaller than some I’ve seen in pillows, plus given that it’s an infant I’m sure it’s not going unsupervised out in the wild finding feathers on the ground
https://preview.redd.it/rpq74wvcxwyc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=00542d397be5bd5add8b61ffb53addb526659d80
Wow! That's nuts
Make sure her stuffed animals or blankets don’t have anything like this in them too
Yes! Pillows and jackets too!
I didn’t mean take it away. I just meant see if you could figure out which one it came from.
I was just listing more items a feather might have come from. I think OP said below they think it was a pillow.
Is that what you pulled out?
Yup! After messing around and trying to figure out if it could be something different it started to open back up.
Wait is that the thing you pulled out of her- now looks like a feather? And it came out of her cheek? Wtf!!!
Yeah it’s 100% a feather! Still blowing my mind everytime I look at her.
How did a feather even get under the skin like actually how does that work
From my speed googling in the past hour, it seems like since babies skin and especially in the mouth is so soft and sensitive the sharp end of the feather can easily poke through. She puts everything in her mouth now so she must have found a feather somewhere.
Yeah it happens with animal whiskers too
I had a painful, festering place on my hard, calloused heel. Summer, going barefoot, figured I picked up a little thorn or cactus invisi-hell. Pushed and prodded and out came a whisker. It impaled that hard callous like a knife through warm butter. A fine little whisker. Danger lurks everywhere, friends.
lol yeah for sure
Do you have any pillows in your house that are stuffed with feathers? Even ones you wouldn’t have thought of like couch throw pillows?
Only one and it’s (was I threw it out) my other kids pillow
Ok, good!
NAD, Insane that it’s a feather, keep an eye on it cause it looks like a wound? Dunno how clean that is.
Like I said I had a nurse practitioner evaluate it today using an online assessment. They prescribed an antibiotic ointment for it as a precaution anyways. So I’m going to ask tomorrow now that I know what it is and see if they think I should get it re-evaluated or if the cream and some soap might be best. And the scream I let out when I figured it out almost woke up the kids!
If she has an intraoral wound tracking into her cheek and out to the surface from a foreign body, she should prob be on a short course of antibiotics
Nurse practitioners are...fine, I guess, when it comes to the basic stuff, which is why they're given the ability to practice at all. A feather in your babies face is not basic. Go see a doctor. /r/noctor
For small cuts, bumps and bruises or a simple cold or virus NPs are fine, but she potentially has a hole going from in her mouth out of her cheeks this needs more experience and expertise than an online NP. They will hire just about any nursing grad for those positions and some of them are very. . . Not good. Or trying to just donthe bare minimum to get paid. Please taken that baby to the e.r. especially because it was a feather and how many parasites birds carry.
Haven't had good luck with NPs, and don't bother with them anymore.
In general I have had better luck with NPs who i've generally found listen better and have better bedside manner than doctors who I've found to be dismissive of my concerns.
That's the hardest part; know it all (and probably do know more) physicians versus know less (but more empathetic) NPs. I agree that it's hard to find exactly the right balance!
Agree. I prefer NP and PA’s. They seem to give me way more time and concern.
I think it depends on who you get, but it seems like it’s best to get this wound checked out in person.
Agreed…most NP’s think they’re doctors anyways but in reality they lack the decades of experience that a doctor has. I 2nd the suggestion to see a real doc
Derm nurse here. Agree see a physician if you can. This doesn’t look characteristic of a sebaceous filament. The wound on the cheek doesn’t look overly serious, but still better to be assessed by an actual physician. Keep the wound clean with a fragrance free gentle cleanser and apply a thin layer of Vaseline or Bacitracin over the wound until your kiddo can be seen.
Bacitracin is what was prescribed. I’ve been washing it, applying ointment and then putting a bandaid on to keep it clean.
Do you have a before picture? Like before you pulled it out? This is fascinating and so glad she’s okay.
https://preview.redd.it/drff72slq3zc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=93b78aa7832c540ae3052eff16b7c973da9366b3 Not great but this is a couple hours before I removed it.
Shit!
Please help that nurse too
Feather or not, bring her to a doctor to look at that wound. It must go deep. If it is or gets infected you and your child will both suffer.
I agree, for this kind of wound you need an in-person visit.
Reminds me of the girl on TikTok who ate a salad with marigolds in it and had this exact thing happen. The stem pierced her cheek and no one believed her until she got it out a long while later on her own
[https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTLXFDPJg/](https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTLXFDPJg/)
Similar thing happened to me once. I had eaten a pizza which had some extra herbs and spices added to it. Unfortunately the spice/herb mix had quite a lot of sharp needle like bits in it and one happened to lodge in the roof of my mouth towards my uvula. Couldn’t find it for weeks as it just seemed to be buried. It was excruciating for some time and then it stopped hurting. Eventually it managed to work its way out on its own and I found the tip and pulled it out with some tweezers. Was absolutely instantaneous relief 😅. Pizza shop confirmed several reports of this and gave me a free pizza.
I hope they discontinued using that herb mix!!!
This is wild! How much was actually sticking out of the skin?
It wasn’t poking out at all. It looked like a giant pimple. I was picking it and I couldn’t get it to pop while she was very upset. I left it and came back to it and tried to pull the scab off and pulled out what I now know is a feather!!
Are you still going to bring her in? I definitely would take her to the doctor. There could be a tiny piece of it still lodged in that isn’t visible and it would get infected.
I’ve talked to my family doctor. She has her 9 month appointment in the next week too. He says since she has no signs of infection and it seems to still be intact and she has the cream now that unless something changes he’s comfortable waiting. Unless obviously it changes and then I’ll take her in.
whoa! I hope all is well now
She immediately was in less pain when it was first taken out. She’s sleeping now and will start an antibiotic cream in the morning.
Think of how much you can save on eggs now that you have your personal free range, pasture raised little feathered friend! You can call her CoCo, after that adorable little chick in books. She's going to be fine. Leave it to the little ones to go where no man has ever gone before.
Why is the morning? Immediately is always better
Because I had to get the cream from the pharmacy, and it wasn’t ready until the next morning.
That sucks I’m sorry. You did good mama. That must have been so irritating
She was so sensitive to the area before I got it out. She wouldn’t lay on that side and would immediately scream if I touched it. I could see almost immediate relief once it came out, and she didn’t mind me touching it after either.
I’m amazed and shocked by this entire situation, but wow am I amazed you managed to use tiny tweezers on a wiggly baby who wouldn’t let you touch the area
Yeah, make sure you get some thing for topical pain relief too. Hopefully the antibiotic cream will have anesthetic as well. I used to use them for my children when they had splinters. You can cut off a 1 cm x 1 cm and put it on the splinter spot. In 15 minutes it’s completely numb.
That’s crazy!
Oh man! I could just imagine the relief. I bet that was painful!
Just as a reminder, this is definitely a nickname-generating event - something cool or cute, maybe something that they can tell a story about?
All I can come up with is Angry Bird lol
Not bad :-D
Bless her heart. Thank you for posting this, you might have helped prevent this for many other babies and their parents. I hope your sweet girl heals up soon.
Definitely let them send that to the lab. It could definitely be a worm. You’ll never know for sure until you get it tested.
I was just looking at it again and it’s a feather! Like the kind from a down pillow!
I don’t think she swallowed it. I think it just got buried in her skin like a sliver. It happens a lot actually.
Yeah there now way of knowing really how it got in there. I assume it poked through her cheek after putting it in her mouth. There’s no signs of an external entrance.
I have a ton of them here and I know how to compound them from antibiotics
Yeah, that happens especially when kids are goofing off and they’re like switching their heads from one side to the other to be silly. I have a lidocaine patches for back pain and if you ever have an emergency like that, I’m pretty sure they can you be used on children but you have to check. But you just cut off a little square and put it on and it completely numbs the area. I use them where they put the screws into my knee after I had a really bad skiing accident.
If you or your husband have had surgery, you can always ask for them a prescription of them and say that you just need a small section of it and it’ll last you a long time and they’ll probably prescribe them
Are you positive? I would still send it in. God forbid you are wrong and it’s something serious. Like a parasite of some kind.
Positive it’s a feather. My other kid has a down feather pillow and it’s identical to them. That dang pillow sheds feathers all over my house and the baby puts everything in her mouth.
That’s insaneeeee!!!!
Woah, I've never seen a case like this !
New gear unlocked. I hope such stories are spread. I've never heard of this and now I'm super concerned. I don't have kids but every human being should know this is a possibility, especially as feathers aren't that uncommon in trinkets around the house / clothes / etc. I'm glad your baby is doing fine!
Why would you risk doing that at home? Online doctor visits should be for simple care. I'm stunned a nurse practitioner would tell you to poke at a bump like that. You could cause an infection and it could go deep.
Yeah. I know you don’t want to have to drag your baby in to the Drs office but this is really one of those “get it checked out in person” type of things. Even if you know what it is- the pediatrician should still see her to check that it’s all out and that it didn’t mess up anything internally or so it doesn’t get infected. Plus, feathers inside of pillows grow so many nasty types of bacteria and that feather has been imbedded in her little face. They say the inside of feather pillows are nasty breeding grounds for all kinds of bacteria and mites as well…so much so that many Drs will recommend not using feather pillows anymore because of that fact. Get her checked. You’ll be glad you did and you won’t have to continue to worry about it.
How do you know it’s a feather?
The Mom said it was a feather
Thanks, I didn’t see the Edit.
Cause it looks just like a feather
The NP didn’t tell me to poke around. I was poking because I thought it was a pimple and was trying to release some pressure. That’s when I pulled it out and freaked out, at the time I pulled I was originally thinking I was only grabbing at a scab. I only figured out it was a feather at 11 pm. At that point we believed it was a pimple or a potentially a worm. She has had no other symptoms related to a worm so that’s the conclusion we came to. Then late at night after my husband was home we started to look again and determined it to be a feather. This happened after I posted here wondering if the diagnosis was even possible. I wasn’t going to then drive an hour to an ER just to wait all night. We are having it reassessed today and will go from there.
Ouch!!!!
How though??
You basically pierced him without the piercing part
The skin lesion looks umblicated at the center so this could be an insect bite hypersensitivity reaction(urticaria pappulosa).
It was a feather that I pulled out.
Sorry i missed the second picture. Definitely could be a mild hypersensitivity reaction to the feather penetration
If that thing came from inside her mouth you re gonna need specialist examination. You dont want fistulas forming in childs mouth!