Shocking Things Medical Doctors Found People Swallowed

When we mention swallowing, the first thing that comes to mind is food but as I would have thought, you would mention fruits, or water so I was expecting you to mention it but today I will be discussing events where people swallowed foreign bodies, how the bodies got into the body and how they were removed.

You know children are curious especially when they are crawling. They want to put everything they can lay their hands on into their mouth and this curiosity can be dangerous. This was the case of a 16 month old boy that swallowed something and found himself in the emergency Unit. His older sister saw him swallowing something and although he was still breathing, his parent wanted to be sure he was fine. After an X-ray it was seen that the boy had swallowed a SpongeBob SquarePant pendant from his sister's jewelry box. With a mini forceps and camera down his throat, the pendant was removed.

While the SpongeBod SquarePant pendant is big and easy to remove, there was another case of a 2 year old boy who was rushed into the Emergency Unit. He was having a fever, and vomiting, so a chest x-ray was done on the child and then a Button Battery was found stuck in his esophagus. A button battery can be very dangerous as the esophageal environment can trigger electrical current which causes a chemical reaction that can lead to burns in about 2 hours. In cases were a button battery has been swallowed, as a home remedy it is important to give them 5 -10ml of honey to prevent burns before rushing them to the hospital.

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Another strange thing that a person swallowed is a cell phone. This was the case of a 29 year old prisoner who arrived at the emergency unit with nausea and vomiting. An x-ray was done and the phone was found in the esophagus but it was difficult to remove using the camera and forceps method so surgery was done to remove the foreign object.

Another astonishing case is that of a 76 year old woman that presented to the hospital with diarrhea and weight loss. Upon screening with a CT scan, a pen was found in her digestive system. It was discovered that she swallowed a pen about 25 years ago and when an x-ray was done then, it didn't show because plastics don't show on X-rays.

The next is the case of a woman who was holding in her teeth a sewing needle but at the point of being distracted, she swallowed the needle. She had no symptoms but had to quickly go to the hospital. The needle was in his digestive system until 10 days later when it was seen in his chest cavity and a CT scan showed it was in her lungs. To extract the needle, a surgery was done through the ribs to the lungs where the needle was removed.

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One that looks normal but led to a medical case was that of an elderly man who presented with abdominal and chest pain after eating a fish bone that stuck in
his abdomen. He had elevated level of troponin and was diagnosed with a heart attack. A CT scan was done and a 6cm fishbone was found in his liver which showed that the bone had pierced through his stomach to his liver causing an abscess. A laparotomy was done to remove the fishbone, and antibiotics was given to treat the infection.

These peculiar cases underscore the unpredictable nature of life's twists and turns, offering glimpses into the resilience of the human body and the ingenuity of medical interventions in the face of unexpected challenges. It is important to be cautious about our health and find medical solution to whatever health condition you find yourself by going to the hospital immediately.

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Reference

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https://casereports.bmj.com/content/2011/bcr.10.2011.5001
https://cardiothoracicsurgery.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1749-8090-6-77
https://radiopaedia.org/cases/foreign-body-in-the-oesophagus-1?lang=us
https://www.cmaj.ca/content/183/8/925.full}