The Body's Natural Rejection Of Foreign Bodies

[Mighty_Emperor]

I went out with a girl who told me a stroy about her uncle having anasty accident and getting quite a bit of gravel left in a wound then many years later the bits seemed to pop out f his skin. I assumed it was a FOAF (still do ) but it seems the body can reject such foreign bodies after a long time wandering around inside people like this:

Man Coughs Up Nail 35 Years After Accident

Written for the web by Jason Kobely, Internet News Producer

In 1970, a bizarre gardening accident embedded a small nail deep inside Guy "Bud" Hart's body.

More than 35 years later, the nail made an unexpected return, much to Hart's surprise.

The Placerville man was stunned earlier this month when a coughing fit expelled the inch-long sliver of metal, completing its decades-long trek inside the 84-year-old's body.

"I didn't think something like that could happen," Hart said.

The story of Hart and his unexpected passenger began in Minnesota back in 1970. While mowing grass one day, Hart felt a slight pain in his throat and saw a small trickle of blood.

"It was like a bee sting," Hart said. "But I didn't think much of it."

Hart wasn't overly alarmed, but just hours later, the discomfort began.

"The next day, when I coughed, it was like I had a hot knife in there, cutting me," Hart said.

His family rushing him to the hospital with a 105-degree temperature. There, doctors found the culprit, a small nail that had dropped down inside Hart's body cavity and nestled inside his ribcage.

Doses of penicillin helped Hart heal, but since removing the metal would require major surgery and doctors suspected the nail would seal itself off in Hart's body, the foreign object was forgotten for years.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," Hart said.

Years later, the nail turned up again on a doctor's x-ray, but again, the unobtrusive item was left alone.

Then, three weeks ago, an internal camera captured an image of the nail during a routine doctor's office visit. But it wasn't in Hart's ribcage area as he'd always thought -- the object was actually in Hart's lung. As Hart and his doctors made plans to remove the nail once and for all, natural physiology took over.

Hart was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth last week when the 35-year partnership finally came to an end.

"I'd been having this tickle in my throat," Hart said. "Pretty soon, I started coughing. And it plopped right out."

Since the pair were separated, Hart's been feeling fine and doctors have no reason to think the nail had any lasting impact on his health.

Hart keeps the nail in a small plastic bag but doesn't have any long-term plans about what to do with the strange artifact.

"Sell it to the Smithsonian Institute?" Hart laughed. "No, I never gave it much thought."

www.news10.net/storyfull2.aspx?storyid=15971

Anyone know of other cases?

 

[Anome]

I remember reading and/or hearing lots of stories about people shot in the war, and the bullet popping out some years later.

To my understanding, what happens is that the foreign matter moves about the body, if it gets into the actual body. If there's organic matter, then the body will react to it, causing an infection that will either destroy it, or push it out.

In the case described above, I suspect the gravel was mostly trapped in the skins, so as the upper layers slough off, it moves towards the surface, and falls out as the layer of skin it's in flakes off.

Just an educated guess by a non-medical professional.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

Matching Story

Around 15 years ago I accidentally ran approximately a quarter-inch of wooden matchstick into the flesh at the base of my thumb. I tried to get it out with a tweezers, couldn't, and eventually decided that I hadn't actually stuck myself with the wooden fragment after all. I'd apparently driven it in so deeply that I couldn't feel it.

A week later I experienced a funny (not painful) sensation in the ball of my thumb and watched as the matchstick piece "popped" out.

 

[plusk]

This reminds me of one of the few Fortean events in my life. Some 20 years ago I was working in the garden stripped to the waist, when a car (old red saloon) stopped in the road outside - not parked, just sat in the middle of the road. It remained like that for several minutes - so much that I started wondering what it was doing there. Then I heard a loud crack like a shot and a stinging sensation in my abdomen area. Just as I thought "I've been shot", the car took off at speed. However there was no wound on me and after a while the stinging sensation stopped. Some months later a small round black object - like a sigle piece of bird shot "popped" out of the skin on my belly. There is probably a reasonable explanation but it still gives me the shivers thinking about it.

 

[Anome]

Sounds like you were shot with a BB gun. How it got into your body without leaving a mark is a bit of a mystery. Could have been just luck. I have a childhood memory of stepping barefoot on a nail, which definitely went in, but there was no wound afterwards. (Of course, childhood memories are notoriously unreliable.)

If the entry was clean, and the pellet was travelling fast enough, and the entry wound was small enough, it might be possible that there would be no obvious wound, and no blood. But that's a lot of "if".

 

[plusk]

'Scuse ignorance. What's a BB gun?

 

[citizencane]

I have a friend who was in a car accident that shatterd all the windows of his car.
He was alright for the most part aside from some bruises and some small cuts.
But about a year to 18 months later he began getting pimples all over his face neck,and upper body not red like acne ,just white bumps.
All of them eventually burst and in the fluids that emerged was a small pointed piece of glass.
Tiny slivers that had penetrated due to the sharpness and speed at which they had been propelled at him, but left no mark at the point of entry.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Interesting stuff - one wonders how this odd but natural process fits in with alien implants. One of the claims seems to be that they must be implants as they don't cause any kind of nasty reaction but it seems that people can often harbour odd bits of material in their body for quite a while (one wonders if we all have them around but its only suspected abductees who go looking for them).

'Scuse ignorance. What's a BB gun?

Its like an air rifle that fires little ball bearings.

 

[plusk]

Thanks ME - in my case it definitely wasn't a ball bearing - just a very small roud black sphere. My rational explanation for the incident is that the car backfired, took off and as it did so a piece of grit from the road was set into motion rather like a tiddly wink - strange that the car should stop and then go like that though.

 

[PeniG]

Actually, it *is* an air rifle that fires ball bearings (BBs), not just "like" that. (Yeah, yeah, nitpicking isn't nice and won't win friends.) A highly coveted toy in rural areas of the U.S. and a not unreasonable introduction to gun culture; bad idea in urban areas.

For a good grounding in the cultural and social importance of BB guns, rent the movie "A Christmas Story," which will, if nothing else, give you a fair notion of how likely such a toy is to poke a child's eye out.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Thanks ME - in my case it definitely wasn't a ball bearing - just a very small roud black sphere. My rational explanation for the incident is that the car backfired, took off and as it did so a piece of grit from the road was set into motion rather like a tiddly wink - strange that the car should stop and then go like that though.

Well the ammo is smaller than a ball bearing (then I suppose it depends on how big one's ball bearings are I suppose) - I was just struggling for a reference. Here is one:

The name of the gun refers to the original ammunition it used, which came from the lead shot used in a shotgun shell. "BB" (0.18 inch) was the size between "B" and "BBB"; modern rounds are made of non-toxic steel, plastic, or copper, and are usually .177 caliber (4.5 mm). BB is often mistaken to stand for "ball bearing", which BB ammunition resembles, but there is little to suggest that this connection is intentional.

Some also use shaped pieces of lead called pellets. These vary widely in shape, but generally have a flared back end for stability in flight and either a sharp point or blunt tip.

Another type of ammunition is a dart, which looks like a small nail with a tassel on the end. Darts allow for the penetration of tougher targets, like snakes, and can be used in place of hand-thrown darts in a game of darts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BB_gun

However, they are rare in the UK.

I have been shot at with an air rifle though so its not uncommon but I would imagine you'd know about it.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Interesting stuff - one wonders how this odd but natural process fits in with alien implants. One of the claims seems to be that they must be implants as they don't cause any kind of nasty reaction but it seems that people can often harbour odd bits of material in their body for quite a while (one wonders if we all have them around but its only suspected abductees who go looking for them).

Yeah I thought so - one of the main criteria is:

On February 18th, 1994, while Sims was speaking at a conference organized by the American Medical Association, at the John Muir Medical Centre, Sims declared the following:

• 1. if the objects found inside abductees were really of alien origin, no inflammatory reaction, acute nor cronical would happen. About one year later, this has been verified;

www.ufopsi.com/ufodc/alien_implants.html

Of course for this to be true you would have to establish that this couldn't happen naturally which this thread suggests it does.

The other claims, while testable, doesn't appear to have been tested properly.

-------
See also:

This is the closest we have to a specific thread on implants:

www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6459

 

[citizencane]

This reminds me of one of the few Fortean events in my life. Some 20 years ago I was working in the garden stripped to the waist, when a car (old red saloon) stopped in the road outside - not parked, just sat in the middle of the road. It remained like that for several minutes - so much that I started wondering what it was doing there. Then I heard a loud crack like a shot and a stinging sensation in my abdomen area. Just as I thought "I've been shot", the car took off at speed. However there was no wound on me and after a while the stinging sensation stopped. Some months later a small round black object - like a sigle piece of bird shot "popped" out of the skin on my belly. There is probably a reasonable explanation but it still gives me the shivers thinking about it.

How big was the object ?
A BB is .17 caliber,or about the same size as a match head. A BB is steel or copper plated steel and will turn black after being in flesh for a while.
My neighbor has shot my dog in the butt with one before and we did not discover it for a month or so,it had turned black as coal.
I set up a video camera and caught the scumbag doing it again and had the police confiscate the BB gun to put an end to the abuse of my dog.

 

[rynner2]

My neighbor has shot my dog in the butt with one before and we did not discover it for a month or so,it had turned black as coal.
I set up a video camera and caught the scumbag doing it again and had the police confiscate the BB gun to put an end to the abuse of my dog.

Good for you! 8)

 

[ghostdog19]

The foreign matter is rejected, and if infection doesn't occur then it can work its way out. pretty normal phenomenon.

Titanium screws. That's what they use when you have false screwed in teeth put in, because it merges with bone, bone accepts it basically. They stick the screws in, then six months later, they cut back a flap of skin that will naturally have grown over the top of the screw and screw you're brand new teeth in. Was offered the procedure on one of my missing gnashers I'd had knocked out some years before in an altercation, because the missing tooth meant my opposite side was suffering from me over compensating when I chew. The procedure back then cost somewhere in the region of £1,400.

The teeth screw in permanently. It's a fine way to blow off any dental appointments for the rest of your life, so long as you can afford the £20,000 odd minimum procedure it would cost to have ALL your teeth done. But just think. No more stains and no more holes!

so I guess this must mean that if you got shot by a titanium bullet, the bullet would likely find a home and never come out.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

Or Was She Just Needling Me?

My late Mother told me more than 50 years ago that in her own grade school days (1920s, the same school I later attended in the 1940s and 1950s) that the mother of one of her classmates experienced a pain in her left upper leg and watched stunned as a needle poked out through the flesh. It was a sewing needle which she had accidently run into her left arm and lost two decades or so before that.

Since I DID hear this tale more than 50 years ago I may conceivably mis-rember the exact order. So it COULD have been leg to arm rather than the other way 'round. But I'm fairly certain that the points of entry and egress were both on the same side of the body.

Question - what happens if such an object penetrates an internal organ, such as the heart? I've never come upon such as thing listed as a cause of death. Has anyone else on this board?

 

[Bigphoot2]

I had an uncle who had been shot in WW2 and right up to his death in his 70's he'd get the occasional bullet fragment working it's way out.

 

[ArthurASCII]

My father was wounded more that once during WW2. Every now and then (even 40 years after the event) he would wipe his eye, and a tiny piece of shrapnel would appear on his handkerchief. His wounds were in the lower body area, but the shrapnel seemed to travel throughout his body. sometimes appearing through his skin at his shoulders, ankles, hands etc. Truly exraordinary. The pieces of shrapnel were usually about the size of a pinhead. They were black and magnetic.

 

[fluffle9]

Re: Or Was She Just Needling Me?

Question - what happens if such an object penetrates an internal organ, such as the heart? I've never come upon such as thing listed as a cause of death. Has anyone else on this board?

Probably doesn't happen very often. There'd be very little force on the object, and i guess that it would be moving around in stuff that's more easy to penetrate than the internal organs.

 

[CrusoeThePainter]

This is common to bomb victims in Israel

Doctors tell bombing survivors that they will be shedding little bits of shrapnel the rest of their lives as the body works it out.

One women mentioned on TV she still sheds pieces of metal from when she was hit by a suicide bomb blast years earlier.