What Happens If You Don’t Take out a Splinter?

Here’s a prickly choice for you would you rather have a tiny shard of broken glass of stuck in your fingertip or a little sliver of wood if you had to pick you might prefer the wood right after all wood is softer and natural and glass like nothing but sharp edges so the fact is as far as your immune system of concerned splinters made of organic matter can pose a bigger threat than a chip of glass or sliver of metal of course when anything gets under your skin your body’s immune system will react to the invasion the tissues around the injury will get inflamed becoming red and swollen as blood and immune cells rush to the site but if

It’s a big object like a splinter and the cells can’t break it up and get it out the next best thing is to wall it off from the rest of the body white blood cells will surround it forming a barrier known as a granuloma to keep it from going anywhere but glass and metals are inorganic they’re not made from the tissue of a living thing so they won’t cause as much of an inflammatory response as an organic object like a piece of wood or a thorn if your splinter is a piece of glass as long as it isn’t from like a beaker of anthrax or something it’s not the end of the world if you can’t get it out right away because the granuloma will just keep it blocked off in fact doctors

sometimes recommended leaving small pieces of glass or metal in the sight of you because it’s more damaging to your tissue to dig around and get it out but organic materials like wooden splinters cactus spines or plant thorns are more of a problem these little so-and-so’s cause a much bigger reaction from your immune system woods have oils and resins in them that your cells recognized as especially dangerous so they trigger more inflammation they’re also more likely to be covered in all sorts of harmful bacteria and fungi that’s.

Why people get tetanus shots to protect them from clostridium teton I the bacterium that causes tetanus a condition that can cause uncontrolled muscle spasms throughout your body you might associate tetanus with like rusty nails but rust doesn’t cause tetanus it just gives the bacteria a nice home to live in organic matter like soil and feces can also Harbor the bacteria so if your skin is punctured by anything that’s been contaminated with it it’ll make you sick another disease sporotrichosis more commonly called rose gardeners disease it’s caused by a fungus that late on.

Rose thorns and can produce painful sores on your skin in cases like these more and more white blood cells will join the granuloma around the Splinter to try to fight off the infection and in some cases the granuloma will get so big they have to be surgically removed so sure having a sliver of broken glass or a metal shaving under your skin can be incredibly painful and gross but it turns out that splinters made of wood might be more dangerous in the long run every rose has its thorn but some of them have fungi that will make you sick thank you for asking and thanks especially to all .

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