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At a recent medical conference in Chicago, a team of radiologists from Nationwide Children's Hospital presented intriguing X-ray evidence of a psychological phenomenon — what they believed was a new form of self-injury among teens and adolescents. Eleven out of 505 patients whom the team had treated in more than a decade had inserted objects — from chunks of crayons to unfolded paper clips — under their skin in a behavior the Nationwide team labeled "self-embedding."
The dangers of this form of self-injury are obvious, and serious. Creating any wound in the skin can lead to infection, but when foreign objects are inserted deep into tissue, the risk is amplified. "The infections aren't just at the site," Shiels says. "You can get a deep muscle infection or a bone infection," or if you hit arteries, veins, nerves or tendons while driving something into the soft tissue, you can cause tears or other damage. Beyond those risks, there is also the possibility that objects can travel once inside the body, approaching vital organs. "They pose significant risk, not only during insertion, but also if they're not removed," Shiels says.