Where do splinters go?

Factual Questions
1

I’ve got a painful splinter in my finger right now that’s way too deep to start gouging at. (I’m really, really bad at getting out splinters.) The thing is, I know that in a day or so it (or the pain) will be gone. Does the splinter go away? Wouldn’t I notice its emergence if it works its way out? Does it work its way out or does my body eject it? Or does the body absorb it? (My splinters are almost always organic material, either wood slivers or thorns.)

I realize this is mundane, but it’s not pointless (AR! humor!), so I thought I’d post this here. Mods, pls. move if I was wrong. Thanks.

2

Organic material decomposes into smaller particles, speeded by the heat and chemicals of your body. This is actually a safe guess.

3

Your body will attempt to eject larger chunks, and non-organic slivers will be covered with scar tissue.

4

Aaahh … so that’s what happened to that 15-year-old glass sliver in my foot.

5

Well, to be anecdotal, I’ve had several splinters in my life so far (and other things pencil lead stuck under my skin in various places).

I got a splinter in my finger that I couldn’t get out, so I figured I’d leave it to see what happened with it. It seemed fine until a week or so later it began to turn yellow-green. Not good. The area started to swell up slightly with pus. Argh, infection. It was at this point, though, that I was finally able to pierce the pus-bubble and grab the splinter with the tweezers. All with the aid of plenty of isopropyl alcohol and/or hydrogen peroxide, of course.

The pencil lead (graphite) that got stuck inside my chin as a youngster has yet to be heard from again, though.

My advice, just watch for infection.

6

Sometimes a small pocket of infection will develop around the splinter and erupt, ejecting it.

But there have been times when I’ve had a particularly deep splinter or thorn in my fingertip where it just seems to stay there for weeks and months, nagging me every time I move in a certain way, until I steel myself and dig it out (which often involves a quantity of blood and sweat).

7

Inert stuff will just sit in your body. I have a good portion of a pencil lead in the flesh under my nose.

I have never personally known thorns or splinters to remain in the body. Usually they get red and slightly infected, as the body builds up pus around it, then in a pimple like deal it gets ejected.

I was tearing out brush in the spring, and about a week and a half later I had a seeming epidemic of pimples on my arms. I believe that most of them were the simple ejection of that tiny brittle tip from the pricker bushes.