ELi5: Why no poisoning when doctor leaves bullet inside you?
In: Biology
I’m going to guess that you’re asking why sepsis (the major cause of bullets and/or foreign objects being left in your body cause massive health issues) cannot be a problem. From what I understand, it has a lot to do with other foreign fragments being encapsulated inside the body like fragments of clothing and other foreign material when the round/bullet enters the body. It all depends on the person being shot and their immune system and the type of foreign material entering and staying in their body. From talking to health professionals which are in my family and my limited experience in the military it also has to do with what part of the body that round is resting in.
>ELi5: Why no poisoning when doctor leaves bullet inside you?
There are no poisoned bullets (with [rare exceptions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Markov)).
There’s always a risk of infection, of course, if a lot of other foreign material is pushed into the body by the entering bullet. But whether or not there is an infection is trivial to determine and if there isn’t one and removing the bullet would involve risky procedures then it’s a reasonable course of action not to remove it.
Does OP mean to refer to lead poisoning?
Your body already contains trace amounts of metals to begin with, metal isn’t poisonous to you unless it’s in higher doses or in some cases ingested in higher doeses as a poison, doctors don’t leave bullets inside you as far as I know, they’d always be extracted, if the lead gets into your bloodstream to begin with it means it’s nicked or gone Into one of your internal organs and you have a lot more to worry about than lead poisoning.
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