Jul 20, 2018

Announcer: Is it bad enough to go to the emergency room, or isn't it? You lot're listening to "ER or Non" on The Telescopic.

Interviewer: Time for another episode of "ER or Not." That's where nosotros give you a situation and then our emergency room doc, Dr. Troy Madsen from University of Utah Health, tells u.s. whether or not we should become to the ER or not. Then play along at home.

Dr. Madsen, today's "ER or Not" is if a pencil punctures the skin. So however it happens, you accidentally sit on a pencil, somebody pokes you with a pencil, that pencil gets in and punctures your skin. ER or not?

Dr. Madsen: Well, this is ane of those . . . I have to answer by kind of referencing probably something all of u.s.a. have seen every bit children, and that is a pencil stuck in other kids. And I recollect distinctly as a child, growing up in elementary school, and I don't know how this happened, but some kid threw a abrupt pencil across the room and flung it, and it stuck in some other kid'south forehead, just stuck there.

Interviewer: Oh, man!

Dr. Madsen: Yep, that's ane of those images that just does not leave your mind.

Interviewer: No, I don't suppose. No.

Dr. Madsen: And I recall that kid had, basically, a marking on his forehead for quite a while after that and actually had some of the pb in his forehead also. And you could run into that lead there for quite a long time.

Interviewer: Yep, I did the same affair with my leg. I accept lead that y'all can still kind of see the night discoloration in my leg, only it's not actually . . . And I think that's what freaks people out. They remember, "Oh, lead, lead poisoning," just it's not really lead, is it? It's graphite, isn't it?

Dr. Madsen: It'southward graphite, exactly. And it'southward non pb that'due south going to crusade lead poisoning.

Interviewer: Okay.

Dr. Madsen: So that's probably the biggest concern and that's probably why this question comes up because you could have, say, a pen or you could have something else and cutting yourself, and you lot have a little cutting in that location and you think to yourself, "Okay, that's fine. I'm going to put a trivial flake of antibiotic ointment on here. Information technology'due south going to get amend." Simply then, you throw in the whole lead matter and people think, "I'm going to get lead poisoning from this."

Tin can You Get Lead Poisoning From a Pencil?

So, number i, yeah, information technology's graphite. It'south not really lead in the sense we recall of lead poisoning. And when you recall of lead poisoning, you're talking typically near houses that have old lead pigment and then houses built anything prior to 1978. And there, you're talking nigh young kids who can then be kind of walking effectually, like toddlers, around near the ground putting stuff in their mouth. And for that, for these kids to really be at risk of lead poisoning, you're talking about exposure over a long catamenia of time and actually just kind of eating paint chips or getting stuff, grit in their oral fissure, things like that.

So even if this were lead that were apropos from a pencil, such a small amount, simply again, it's not. This is more than graphite. We're non talking about lead poisoning here so the pb itself is not a reason to go to the ER.

Interviewer: All correct. So a pb pencil punctures the peel, probably non the ER. Treat it like whatsoever other wound unless it is, I suppose, really severe.

Dr. Madsen: Exactly. Treat information technology similar you would anything else that stabs y'all. If you're having neurologic bug, if it affects a nerve, if it affects tendons, if it'southward deep where information technology'southward going to potentially impact anything internal. Anything below the surface, yeah, go to the ER, but otherwise, the atomic number 82 itself is non something you should be concerned near.

Announcer: Take a question about a medical process? Want to learn more about a wellness condition? With over 2,000 interviews with our physicians and specialists, there'due south a pretty good chance yous'll discover what you lot desire to know. Check information technology out at TheScopeRadio.com.


updated: July 20, 2018
originally published: January 15, 2017

Heart Health

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