I've got a splinter in my skin

[gib65]

Hello,

 

Last weekend I got a splinter in my finger. I hardly noticed it at all until a few days later when it started to hurt a little and the skin around it turned red. I ignored for the longest time, but it kept getting worse. Now my finger is all puffed up. It's dark red at the center, a circle of white puss around it, and a large area (about a centimeter and a half in diameter) of red - almost purple - around that. I hurts to bend my finger and it hurts to touch it.

 

Is this something I should worry about? Go see a doctor about? Will it heal itself in time?

 

I also want to know, just our of pure curiocity, what my system is doing. How does it get rid of splinters and other foreign debris in the skin? What's the point of swelling up with blood and puss?

[insane_alien]

sounds like it might have become infected.

 

go see a doctor.

[GDG]

Your body responds to foreign objects with inflammation. The swelling reduces circulation to the area, which minimizes spreading of any accompanying bacteria. Your macrophages will attempt to break down and digest the splinter itself, along with any bacteria in the area. Other lymphocytes (mainly T8+ cells and natural killer cells) are also attracted to the inflammed site, and kill bacteria. Inflammation also causes an increase in temperature (which is why you have a fever with a systemic infection), which slows down bacterial replication.

[OliviaMcQ]

Did you clean it at all? And just out of curiosity, why didn't you pull the splinter out?

[Phi for All]

Canada's public health system doesn't have a pamphlet on tweezers and H2O2?

[Tolmosoff]

My mother was born in mexico and when she was a young girl she got a splinter on top of her big toe.

Well that stayed with her for fifty years and never bothered her untill age 67 it finally came out without her cutting the skin.

Our body ajusts to forein matter .

[Genecks]

Doesn't the body break down splinters and such?

 

I've never been sure about this, because I know that the human digestive tract doesn't really digest cellulose. Therefore, I've considered the possibility that if a foreign object made of cellulose, such as a splinter from a tree branch or wooden stick, were to insert itself into a human, then the human's cellular physiology would not be able to break it down.

[zule]

Genecks: I think the splinter wouldn't be broken down; it would be encapsulated and/or expelled from the body.