Yesterday I was doing some work around the farm and I smashed my thumb in between 2 hard objects. It hurt something fierce. Originally there was only a little bit of purple blood under the white part of my nail, and I went to work at the tasting room. After a full day of cleaning and working it was throbbing pretty bad and the blood had spread to the blue line in the following picture. (Imagine the holes are not there).

It was throbbing and I was aware of the pressure when picking up paper or even just holding the thumb up.
My grandfather and brother in the past have made a hole, using a drill, to let the pressure out when they have smashed their fingers.
I Googled my situation and Google said I should use a red hot paper-clip to make a hole in the nail and relieve the pressure.

I was looking for something to hold this red-hot paper clip when my eyes spied a soldering iron.

Ah ha my brain says we can use that instead of a paper-clip.
So I got the soldering iron hot and cleaned it off good with some alcohol scrubbed it on a clean rag.

Then I used it to try to make a hole in the center of my finger nail. Kind of like this picture.

Whefffff Wheffff This is intense; three attempts at making the middle hole and making some bid at some bots and I said phew I am not sure I can do this....

Then my finger starts throbbing again;.... now my brain says you really need to relieve the pressure or go see a doctor and let them do it....

So I let the iron sit for a minute to get warm and proceed to try to make the hole on the left.
Blood squirted as I got through the nail and the pressure was relieved.

As I had not done this before, I was thinking maybe I needed a hole on the right side too because it felt as if only part of my finger was draining.

I didn't

I made a hole on the right side too, but unfortunately I was unable to see how deep it was. I didn't make it deep enough to help my blood situation.

Hydrogen peroxide, triple anti-biotic ointment, and a band-aid.

As you can see the blood has stopped oozing out but I have some seepage from the wound. I have been keeping triple anti-biotic ointment and band-aids on it until it heals. Today I can use it no problems and hold it up without it throbbing. The little bit of self-inflicted pain greatly helped the longer-term management of the swelling pain.