Usefullness of X-rays

Factual Questions
1

I would be grateful if a radiologist or someone similar could tell me how dense something has to be to appear on an x-ray. In particular I received a head wound on St Patricks in which I could feel a piece of glass. The doctor that examined me gave it a cursory glance and sent me for x-rays. No foreign bodies appeared on the x-ray so the doctor bandaged me up and sent me home. The wound was still troubling me today and I could still feel the piece of glass. After some home surgery (trust me when I say you dont want to know the details. Rambo stiching his own arm was nothing in comparison) I managed to extract a piece of glass from the wound. Approximately 5mm long. Already the wound is starting to close properly.

Is it reasonable to expect a piece of glass to show up on an x-ray? Shoud a more thorough exam of the wound have taken place?

2

Only if it’s leaded glass. Remember, visible light passes thru most glass pretty nicely; so will x-rays.

I don’t know, hard to say, as I wasn’t there. If you said “I’m sure there’s a chunk of glass left in there, I can feel it” the examiner should have taken that seriously.

QtM, MD

3

They weren’t quite thorough enough, it seems:

From this article.

4

Seems to be a difference of opinion in the medical community as to the visiblity of glass in radiograms. :dubious:

5

It was a budweiser beer bottle that did the damage which I hope are not leaded.

I am going to write a letter of complaint to the hospital. Any medical or technical terms I can throw in to make it sound better?

6

Glass on smaller body parts like arms are pretty easy to see on a radiograph, but you have to use so much more KvP ( thats the force of the photons being produced) on a head, that small particles of glass won’t show up.

7

Hmmnm…I wrote a nice reply, but it seems to have gotten eaten.

The gist of it was: I’ve removed shards of glass up to an inch long that didn’t appear on x-ray. I’ve seen shards of glass on x-rays that were the size of grains of sand. There’s probably lots of compounds that make glass show up on x-ray, but I wouldn’t rely on size alone making it visible.

Anecdotal, I know. But there ya go.

8

I’ve done x-rays on people that have had glass in them, and it is exceedingly hard to detect glass on a skull x-ray because of what x-ray vision said above. If we use enough KvP (voltage) to push the mAs (amperage) through the skull, unless the glass shard is quite significant, it won’t show up well, if at all. Maybe some kind of tangential lateral projection might have detected it, but the angle and the technique would’ve had to have been perfect–and without knowing the exact position of the glass, that angle couldn’t’ve been predicted.

Now, if you happen to fall on your Bud Light and get glass in your ass, I’ll probably find it right away. :slight_smile:

PS- What happened to the guy that conked you with the beer bottle?

9

I’ve had glass shards in my scalp and ear that stayed for a long time. One was in the pinna of my ear… the cartilage part. It came out a year later.

Neither the doc nor the nurse in the ER believed the glass in the ear bit. The scalp they said it will work its way out. Which it did. Over weeks.

But this forum is not the place for my TMI stories, and I seem to have disgusted enough people today.

10

But anyway bryanmaguire, my sympathies. It sucks to walk around with glass in your head and have no one believe you.

11

Thanks for the info guys. Confirms what I thought already.

In response to Rysdad 's Q the guy who did it was only 16. Considering their was no major damage done (apart from a sore head and ruining a really good beer buzz) I agreed with his parents to payment of compensation in lieu of dropping charges.