Posted on 12/04/2008 10:03:53 AM PST by Sopater
Chicago - Radiologists say they have found a safe and precise method for dealing with what appears to be a growing problem among troubled teens: inserting objects such as pins and paperclips under the skin.
Self-embedding disorder is part of a disturbing trend among adolescents - usually girls - who deliberately injure themselves without suicidal intent.
"This is not a local phenomenon," said William Shiels II, a radiologist at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and lead author of a paper on the disorder.
Since the disorder was identified two months ago, at least six other hospitals have reported similar cases, Shiels said, and a national registry is being set up to monitor the cases.
Self-embedding disorder was defined as using objects to puncture the skin or inserting them into a wound after cutting.
"Our children have progressed to the point where cutting doesn't work," he said.
Some research suggests that 14% to 39% of adolescents have engaged in self-injury.
The paper earlier this year found that 56% of a group of 94 girls ages 10 to 14 had practiced self-injury at least once. About 15% of the girls who self-injured used self-embedding, said Lori Hilt, co-author of the paper.
Self-embedding "is probably going on everywhere," said Hilt, a clinical psychology intern at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studied the issue when she was at Yale University.
In research presented at the Radiological Society of North America's annual meeting Wednesday in Chicago, doctors reported on 19 episodes of self-embedding among 10 adolescent girls who were treated at Nationwide Children's Hospital.
Doctors removed 53 objects from nine of the girls, including needles, staples, paperclips, glass, wood, plastic, pencil lead, crayon and stone. The objects had been inserted into arms, ankles, feet, hands and the neck.
All 10 of the girls had been in foster care and diagnosed with mental problems, including bipolar disorder, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Using ultrasound or fluoroscopy, a type of X-ray that provides moving images, doctors were able to detect both metallic and non-metallic objects, which then could be removed through small incisions in the skin. The approach left little scarring and did not cause the objects to fragment.
In recent years, hundreds of message boards, blogs and other Internet sites have sprouted up, allowing adolescents to solicit and share information about self-injury, sometimes glorifying it.
Mental health experts said self-mutilation and self-embedding often are done as a way to relieve tension.
"Very rarely someone wants to die," said Jennifer Derenne, a psychiatrist with Children's Hospital of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa.
I knew a kid in the fifth grade who wold constantly stick straight pins just beneath the skin of his forearm, bury them op to the head, and be so proud of what he had done.
MM
(It's a great gripping mystery novel regardless.)
I think if I had to attend today’s schools, I would stick something more drastic than a pin into my body.
Generally it is meant to be hidden.
http://www.scar-tissue.net/forum/faq.php
http://selfmutilatorsanonymous.org/?page_id=4
Q Why do emo’s never mow their lawn?
A It cuts itself!
All this effort for a few dozen cases.
Good thing they didn't do this with AIDS.
is it a disorder, botched attempt at self performed piercing or trying to copy someone like Amy Whinehouse?
Princess Di was what is known as a delicate cutter. She would cut her forearms with knife knicks. This is actually a fairly common phenomenon among in particular neurotic women with psychological problems. Princess Di wasn’t screwed on right.
Does it strike anyone else that the more bored our society becomes, the more self-destructive we become?
Yep.
Yes. I can imagine her despondent, locked away in her bathroom sobbing in frustration as she goes at her wrists with her Lady Braun.
When I was a kid, my idea of self injury was a football game, or sliding into second base. Can’t tell you how many stones I was pulling out of my “ground rash” days after the slide.
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