I did self-surgery for broken bones at the base of my tongue

[bigfatgrannyof5]

No one will probably believe me, because this does not sound probable, but I'm going to say this, anyway. When I was much younger, perhaps 23 years of age, the bones under the base of my tongue shattered for no apparent reason. I could feel these tiny bone fragments moving about, and the pain was tremendous, cutting me from within.

Soon, these bones had formed into a pile, so I elected to remove them myself, in order to avoid a trip to the E.R. I made an incision and pulled out what appeared to be yellow pieces of bone, or possibly cartiledge, followed by gray chunks of tissue. There was no blood, whatsoever, and no pain afterwards. I have suffered no ill effects from that very surreal situation. No affect was made upon my speech. It has always just sort of haunted me, however, and if there is anyone who can explain what happened, a scientific explanation would be greatly appreciated, and would give me some closure. I have done other self-surgeries, but none so bizarre as this one. I also posted this in rare diseases for lack of where to post it, but I got no response.

[bigfatgrannyof5]

You were one brave, tough little Girl, Ginger.

[ginger899]

Phew-my-gosh!
I am reminded of the time when I was 5 years old and got a weird brown mark in the middle of my hand that I didn't like. I didn't show it to anyone (for some odd reason)

My grandfather always gave me a little job to do, in order to earn jelly sandwiches for tea as a treat, and that job was whitttling down matchsticks into little points, which he used to clean his pipe. I loved that job (oh my, can you imagine a 5 year old kid being allowed to do that job now? Whittling tiny sticks into sharp points, using a razor-edge penknife?) I was also very proud of my work, and proud of being asked to do that by him, whom I admired for being a soldier.
Anyway he asked me to do it so I did, and never cut myself even once. And got a jelly sandwich every day!

Anyway, I didn't like this brown mark. It scared me for some reason. So I got the little sharp penknife, and cut out the brown mark, very very carefully. I then licked it every day umpteen times a day, till it got better. I never showed anyone my wound.
Phew-my-gosh!

[bigfatgrannyof5]

Forgot to tell you, we do have tongue bones.  Above our thyroid, set high, is one bone that wraps around called the hyoid bone. I don't quite understand the mechanics of it, but it has other smaller bones coming off it that go all the way up the sides of one's face.

[bigfatgrannyof5]

I pulled almost all of my own teeth, myself, so I could afford false teeth. On the bottom of my foot, I once had this giant callous on the pad of my foot, below the middle toe. I determined, myself, to remove it at any cost, and so I dug, and dug, and dug. It had an enormous root! going clear to the bone. It is gone for good, now. I removed an unacceptable growth from near the corner of my nose, and I lanced a huge boil from my ear lobe. Okay, so I guess all of these are equally as hideous, but I attribute it to my heavy use of drugs as a teen. They make you have a higher threshold to pain, I think. I do not think I could do any of these today. I am old, soft, and fat. :)

[margypops]

Well I happen to believe you, as I know we can do things we can never possibly believ we would do. It would be interesting to know if it was cartilage ,do we have bone under our tongue ,  .it took some courage to do that , me I would not be able, I do know that when you sail oceans you have to deal with injuries ,I have never been cut but I have bustyed ribs ,in storms , nothing normally one can do for ribs ,wait weeks to \let them heal I bind themup as it helps with pressure .Please tell us more...what else have you had to mend your self ...