My fingers swell during a really hot weather or during extensive exercising, so sometimes I have a problem with taking off my wedding ring. If  this just happened to you and you need help, please read our tips on how to remove a ring from a swollen finger.

First rule is, don’t panic. From my experience, it’s better not try to tug and pull a ring too much, because it can cause additional swelling to your finger and can be really painful. You can try to twist (not pull!) a ring a little from side to side, but if it stuck really hard, try to use cold water and soap or any concentrated dishwasher liquid using the same method of twisting it around your finger. A water and soap usually works perfectly for me.

Other method of taking a stuck ring off, is to lubricate your finger using a hand lotion, Vaseline, butter, oil or anything else which is just slippery. A great product to use is… Windex. Yes, I really mean a glass cleaner, but if you suspect that you can have an allergy reaction, don’t use it. Spray Windex or put any other slippery product on your finger and once again, don’t try to pull your ring off, just twist it around a finger very gently.

One of techniques I’ve read about (never tried by myself, but people swear this works perfectly) is to stick a dental floss (or just a very thin string) under your ring, leaving a small tail to use later on and wrap it around your finger. Each wrap should be close to the one before, but it shouldn’t be wrap too tightly. Now grab the small tail you left and start to unwinding a dental floss and a ring should slip off by itself.

If this don’t help, and your ring is badly stuck, try to just hydrate yourself. Try to limit the amount of salt in your food and drink a lot of water. Elevate your hand above your heart for a few minutes, to bring swelling effect down. After some time you can try to repeat one of methods of removing ring I described above and I really hope this time you are more lucky!

But most importantly – be always safe. If at any point you feel that it’s impossible to do it by yourself, or this is giving you too much pain, and your finger (and sometimes even whole hand) is swollen so much that you are loosing blood circulation or you feel that your finger is broken, you have to seek a medical help immediately. They will probably cut your ring off, which can be really sad for you, especially if this is your precious wedding ring, but don’t worry. Any local jeweller can repair and also re-size this for you.

But remember, if your finger was really damaged, it needs some time to be fully cured, so try not to wear a ring on it for some time. Usually your finger needs about a couple of weeks to fully recover.