They say laughter is the best medicine, and thus Ellen DeGeneres decided to turn a wine-related mishap into an anecdote for The Ellen Show.

The comedian opened the show by waggling her bandaged finger at audience members, saying: “I broke my finger. I know what you're thinking, ‘How can you host a show without the tip of your ring finger?’ I'm not going to let this thing beat me. I am not!”

After asking them to guess what happened to her, DeGeneres decided to spill the beans in her own unique way – and, yes, it had a little something to do with wine.

Read more: Ellen DeGeneres pays tribute to beloved wife Portia DeRossi

“So you know how in gymnastics when you do a one-handed cartwheel and you have to spread the weight evenly between all your fingers? Well, I had two glasses of wine and fell into a door.”

Can't say we haven’t been in similar situations.

DeGeneres went on to explain that she and her wife Portia de Rossi had gone out together for dinner, and had split a bottle of vino between them. Sated, they returned to their Californian home and were just about to walk through the front door when their dogs got just a little bit overexcited.

“The dogs were so excited to see us and I caught the lip of the top step,” she explained. “I was a foot away from the door and I fell into the door and it did something to my finger, I knew something was wrong.”

Unable to resist taking a jab at President Donald Trump, DeGeneres added: “My first thought was, ‘No big deal, Obamacare will cover this.’”

Read more: Ellen DeGeneres shares her advice for aspiring female stand-up comedians

DeGeneres continued: “So, Portia drove me to the hospital, to the emergency room. When I got there, of course the receptionist had so many things for me to sign - a picture for her nephew, a T-shirt for her.

“No, they were wonderful. UCLA, thank you so much [...] anyways, turns out I didn't break it: I dislocated my finger. That's what they call it, which is an incorrect term because I knew where it was located. It was just wrongly located is what it was.”

The 59-year-old then went into detail about the treatment she received and revealed her dented digit had to be “snapped back into place”.

She shared: “Do you know what they do when you dislocate your finger? It's very technical. What they do is they take the part that's dislocated and then they just snap it right back into place.”

Read more: Barack Obama awards Ellen DeGeneres’ bravery in emotional ceremony

DeGeneres finished by saying: “Before they did it, I was in incredible pain and [my nurse] said, ‘Do you want a shot?’ And I said, ‘No, I had two glasses of wine - that’s what got me into this mess in the first place.’

“[Then the nurse told me] 'You're going to feel a little prick, and then some burning.' There was burning alright. Burning followed by cursing is what happened. Just think of any curse word and I said that.

“I invented three new ones, actually.”

The crowd laughed as DeGeneres graciously accepted a $10 cheque from Shutterfly as a get-well-soon present. And, more seriously, some good came of the visit as the comedian met and took a selfie with a couple at the hospital.

“He and his girlfriend, we’re standing there getting a selfie,” she recalled, “and he goes, ‘I hope you’re gonna be okay,’ and I said, ‘I just dislocated my finger.’ I said, ‘What happened to you?’ He goes, ‘I got hit by a bus.'”

Listen to the full story in the video above.

Images: Rex Features