Splinter - Specific Details of Some Splinters

Specific Details of Some Splinters

• Wood: this type of splinter is contracted from lumber or other vegetative materials. Wood splinters must be removed from wounds because they are associated with inflammation and risk of infection. Larger or deeper splinters can result in difficult removal, or localization of the foreign body.
• Fishhooks: fishhooks that become lodged in the skin are problematic because of the barbs found on the ends of most fishhooks. These barbs are designed to make removal difficult, and if not careful, the victim can experience tearing of not only the flesh, but the muscle as well. The most common injuries of fishhooks occur in the hand, face, scalp, foot, and eye.
• Glass: one study found that patients were more likely to feel sensations of a foreign body present in their skin than any other kind of splinter. Though glass is generally detectable by radiography and is radiopaque, there is limited ability for radiography to detect glass fragments smaller than 2mm. Most glass splinters are inert, and generally lack the ability to migrate to other regions of the body.
• Other: Pencil lead and other graphite foreign bodies, once lodged in the cutaneous layer of the skin can cause permanent pigment tattooing if not removed immediately. Metallic bodies range from bb’s to grenade shrapnel. Smaller objects, like bb’s, can be removed without much difficulty if the depth of the wound remains superficial, but if the wound does not protrude past the subcutaneous layers of the skin, and remains inert, the object can actually remain in place. In larger objects, fragments that remain superficial in one’s body may be removed without much trouble, but if wounds protrude past the subcutaneous layers of the skin and even into the muscular area or near vital organs, such objects must be left alone until immediate medical attention is sought. (See types of detection)