OT Metal in your body

Over the years I like everyone else have had my fare share of mis-haps and operations to fix things that have gone wrong. The worst one was the tumor that was in my head, They got it all out but I got a neat plastic plate to cover the 4 1/2" hole in my head with 16 titainume screws and wire to hold it in place (lol I already have an extra hole in my head so I'm lucky to have that out of the way now!). First few years it wasn't so bad but the older I get now I find that I cant take the heat or the cold like I use to. Plastic dose not block the cold and heat like bone dose that's for sure, It gives a hole new meaning to brain freeze if I'm out in the cold to long. If it's hot out and I'm in the shade I can take it but not in the direct sun, It really works on me. But the worst part of all of this is bumping your head on something and hitting one or more of those screw heads! Good GOD almighty there aint nothing hurts that bad! I would rather walk into a trailer hitch with my shin than to bump one of those screws! Man dose that hurt! I have found now I can feel high electrical fields in my head and I can only weld for about 15 min and I have to stop, It kinda makes you feel about 1/2 drunk and you sober back up in a short order and back I go at it again.

I have a cousin that always kinda poked fun at me about these silly kind of things, Till 2 years ago. He was at the truck pulls and was adding 100 lb weights to his truck when he mashed one of his fingers off! They had to put 2 big metal pins in that finger to save it. Now he asks me how I stand it when it gets cold out as he cant stand it now. Welcome to my world!

So how many of you out there have a few pieces of metal added to you over the years and had to change your ways to get things done? Oh I have 2 screws in my right ankle witch also gives me fits when it's cold out. Its funny how something so small as a little screw can change your life. Bandit

No metal in my body that I know of, thank goodness. However I do get metal splinters on regular occasion. I figure if a piece of metal that small can hurt as much as it does, all but on the outside, I can't even imagine what you folks with big pieces inside go through...You have my sympathies....

Well when I was 32 had vascectomy and they put a stainless staple on ea. tube for security....when 55 had left knee replacement..titaniun/high density PE....2 yrs ago cervicle spinal stenosis.. titanium plate/spacers to space three cervicle vertebrae apart and stabilize. I'm pretty much a "junkyard".

When I was young and silly I had 7 studs in my left ear and 4 in my right.They really got cold fast.I got stuck in a drift 2 years ago. Would you believe a car won t hold operating temperature past midnight with a cold wind? My fingers hurt real quick now. Doesn t help that I work in a freezer packaging frozen chicken pieces.

didn't know of any in my body til I got my hand smashed. Went in for x-ray. No broken bones but 3 small pieces of metal showed up. Tech said "I bet you didn't even know they were there". He'd seen it before.

OK there Bandit let us compare boo boos. When I was "I think" 5 years old got a VERY bad burn on my left leg with cowboy pants and plastic trim. Almost needed grafts. Still have that scare. When I was two I stuck my finger in a meat grinder! Yup I have one shorter finger. Cut a big slash in my arm with a piece of metal from a toy truck. I was ten years old and the doctor asked how old I was. Yup ten stitches. Fifteen years ago "don't let anyone tell you that you can't die of a broken heart" "divorse" got an infection in the aortic valve and now have a St.Judes. I tick at night and take the rat poison every day. A couple of years latter I had THREE bleeders on the brain so I have THREE extra holes in MY head!! Is this enough to qualify?? If I get cold when I am outside it is all over. I get a violent knot in my stomach and start to shiver. It got so bad one time after a steam train photo shoot that I shivered all of the way home"2 1/2 hours" and when I got home I climbed into the shower. Closed the tub drain and stood there in as hot of water that I could stand till it got up to the top of my calf. FINALLY stopped shivering. Last tid bit. If you have Waraferin spell? trouble like this and need to stay out in the cold for a long time, first thing grab a can of Arrid Xtra dry anti persperant. HOSE your feet down top and bottom with it. Your feet will not sweat and you will have no problems. IT WORKS. A bit long but fun. Jeffcat

Bandit,

A little over a year ago, I had a heart attack. The good doctor inserted one stent into one clogged artery in my heart. The stent is metal, so when I left the hospital they gave me an identity card to carry with me to show the TSA when I get scanned at the airport. All is well.


Tom in TN

Got a few pieces I picked up in nam. But the rest of me is OEM.

Broke my hip (femoral neck) in a fall when I was 30, 27 years ago. Of the 5 pins used to bolt me back together 2 could not be removed, these are about 5/16x5. So I still have em but have very little problems from their presence. I feel a little sore if I do a spell of very heavy lifting or spend a week or two working on a steep roof. No complaints. As far as airport security I have never set off the detector, and once forgot the two quarters in that pocket and still didn't set it off.

After I had a concussion last year, I noticed almost immediately afterwards that I could not take cold temps. If it was colder than 60 degrees, I waited for the temp to go up before I would go outside. That finally cleared up a bit a couple weeks ago and now I can tolerate down to 50 degrees.

Maybe the "signs" are indicators that you need to revise the things that you are doing and make some changes -- or hire someone to do the work out in the cold! Or just retire if you are eligible.

Had a girlfriend with artificial valves still smoked heavy .I remember when she got home from the hospital and thinking how loud that clock was ticking till I realized it wasn't a clock.it was easy for a sales man to sell her something she started ticking faster when she got excited .
I guess I'm lucky I only got a couple of screws in me but it seems I get more electric shocks lately

Had to get a MRI once and as I am a Pipefitter/welder they insisted on me getting a full body X-ray to make sure I did not have any metal splinters anywhere. (Especially in the eyes).

I know what ya mean! I got 2 plates and and ten screws in my cheek and eye socket from a horse kick to the face.
I hate the cold, a cold wind makes my face and eye just ache for quite a while until it warms. I don't have the hardware card that I was given by the doctor so it is fun going through the detectors at the airport!

14 years ago I had gastric bypass and they used metal staples in my stomach. They will remain as long as I live, I guess. A few years later I had to have a MRI and was concerned they would pull out but I was assured they would be fine. And they were. Airport scanners don't seem to notice either. Sid

Mine is nothing like your's. I have a two and three quarter inch screw in my lower leg where I broke it. I asked the Doc if I had to have it removed, He said it all depends on me, if the electrolysis rejects it, or the chemicals reject, it'll have to come out. Other than that it can stay there. I don't have any trouble with it getting cold, or airports.

Just before I had one of my operations I had a nuclure bone scan and they gave me a card to carry for 6 months to explain if I set an alarm off. Well I had to go to the airport to pick up some parts from overseas. Them people got real upset when I set there alarms off, The hole time I kept telling them that I had screws in my head and that was setting there alarms off so they need to calm down (That really didn't help!!) and leave me be. After 15 or 20 min one of them told me that's not the alarm I had set off, It was a radiation detector I set off. It took a few min for me to figure it out and remember that scan and I pull the card out to show them. One of them could not believe that I could forget something like that. I said its real easy to forget something you don't want to remember. Bandit

I am sure there are various splinters etc in the hands that have accumulated over the years. I do feel the piece of titanium in my right jaw every day.....really noticeable when in gets cold or when I am stressed......like every day!

One of Dad's Nam buddies had enough shrapnel left in his legs and back to set off the airport metal detectors. Would set them off pre 9/11, before they turned up the sensitivity.

I had both of my hips redone 3 years ago. I had arthritis so bad in my hip sockets, it was bone on bone. The end of my hip bones were out of round, almost square. So my hips were "resurfaced". I had new titanium caps put on over my hip bones and the cap in my hip socket. It is a wierd feeling now, still feels like I have "bolts" sticking out the sides of my hips. I am very happy I don't have the daily agonizing arthritis pain everyday anymore. Also had a right shoulder torn tendon repair 1 year ago. I hope this is the last of major surgeries. I am 46 years old now.
Kow Farmer Kurt

Sounds to me like you have classic results of having a brain tumor removed.

My dad has one removed when I was about 10. (late 1960's)
Never got a plate for months cause they had to wait for the swelling to go down.
Then when he did one it was metal and caused a hump on his head.
Looked just like a upside down cup saucer under his skin.

Then 20 years later (late 1980's) they had to go back in again.
We do not know if they missed a piece that grew or if another one started.
He got a plastic plate this time and total recovery time was MUCH shorter.

He can not take the sun or cold. Always wears a hat when outside.
Has a headache everyday but he still cuts his own grass with a push mower at 85 years old.

I have a BB in my eye (long story). Happened when I was 15, Mom found out when I was 45, STILL CAUGHT THE DEVIL. 59 Now and it does bother some. Gary

I had seven screws, two pins, and a bunch of wire in my left elbow for about six months. The doctor said that was too much hardware to leave in that area so he took it back out. The first thing he said after the second surgery was that my elbow hadn't healed yet and if he had taken an X-ray before the surgery he would not have done it at that time. Not exactly what you want to hear. It took another year before I could begin to user that arm normally. After not using that arm for 18 months it took a while to get it back to normal.

I still have a metal suture in my right knee from surgery to repair torn ligaments. X-ray show it has broken but it doesn't seem to bother. I also have a metal suture in my left shoulder. Also had two pins there from repairing a dislocated shoulder but one of them moved up until it almost broke through the skin so it was removed. The other one moved down until it touched on a nerve if I twisted my body. Happened on a weekend so I moved very gently for a couple of days before that one was also removed.

I had a four-year run starting in '08 with a torn Achilles tendon. Ten weeks on crutches caused the opposite hip to go, total replacement. A year later the other hip. Then in '11 I got a Staph infection in the first hip. Still haven't got all my strength back.

I don't even want to go there. Lets just say I feel like that Haywood Banks song, There's nothing left of me but stiches sutures and garden hose! Lord if I knew then what I know now I sure would have done things different that's for sure. I'm still above ground so I guess I'm doing good. Bandit

A year ago last March, the Dr. put a ring of magnetized titanium beads around my esophagus. It keeps the acid down where it is supposed to be. Works good- don't really know its there.

By the way it sounds I'm not the only one who has been hard on himself, But we are like the Energizer Bunny we just keep going and going and we just get rebuilt to a point. Life is what you make of it and we maybe hard on ourselves but its what we want to do otherwise we wouldn't do it. It's like Larry doing all the stone work he dose, It's what he dose and dose it with the best of them. I would like to see the average American man try to keep up with him for 1/2 a day without passing out. So we have a few boo boos along the way, So what! As grandpaw use to say "What don't kill you just makes you stronger!" And I do believe he was right. Bandit

Been told many times I have lead in my butt.

We had an EF4 tornado hit my house and property and pretty much demolished most of it. Ripped the roof off the house and blew out windows. I had to get a titanium plate put in my neck and swmbo had a broke leg. Tornadoes suck....a lot! I do get a little nervous when a weather warning is issued. I now understand the verse in the Bible where it says the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Got that one Lord, lets don't do that again. :shock:

(quoted from post at 00:15:53 05/03/15)
We had an EF4 tornado hit my house and property and pretty much demolished most of it. Ripped the roof off the house and blew out windows. I had to get a titanium plate put in my neck and swmbo had a broke leg. Tornadoes suck....a lot! I do get a little nervous when a weather warning is issued. I now understand the verse in the Bible where it says the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Got that one Lord, lets don't do that again. :shock:

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I have a friend that has a bit different take on that verse. He says the rain falls on the just and the unjust, but more so on the just because the unjust have stolen their umbrellas.

I have 2 titanium stints, and about 50 stainless steel hernia mesh clips