so maybe a final footenote on this. had a consult with the hand guy again. told me to stop using the super glue and neosporin. if you've gone the super-glue route, you've probably noticed the glaciers of dried glue and dead skin the builds up. it's really only a stopgap measure anyway, so i was happy to bid it farewell. apparently long-term use of neosporin will poison the flesh that's trying to grow back. i did not know that.
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an aside on vitamin e:
when i was a cub engineer, i worked a few years for an electrosurgical company. a high-power RF burn is just like a high-power electrical shock except that your nerves and muscles can't react to the RF like 60Hz. meaning you can get a whale of an electrical burn without realizing it until you smell yer burning flesh and feel your skin and underlying tissue turning into a blackened crisp.
an engineering lab filled with green engineering techs full of exposed high-power RF = recipie for mishaps. we kept a large jar of vitamin E caplets in hte lab. get burnt, split one open, drizzle it on the wound, put a band-aid on it and it would heal quite a bit sooner than if left untreated. interesting thing about RF burn scabs when they fall out, they usually leave an inverted cone-shaped crater almost every time. getting hit by RF was almost unavoidable, i was pretty careful, myself. you wouldn't believe the electrical accidents i saw in that lab. it's a miracle nobody was killed or visibly maimed.
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he recommended a vitamin E and hand lotin treatment. been doing it for a coupla weeks now. that 5-month-old spider bite is finally disappering. all of my fingertip cracks have closed up and appear to be healing normally. it even worked on that split on my lower lip that was driving me bonkers. so i call that a tentative win.
as for the bass necks, now that we're over the initial shock, i think we're good until spring when the process reverses. to the point where everybody's wearing their truss rod covers again. and again.
