The Metal They Found In Her Stomach Is From Something We All Had In High School

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The Metal They Found In Her Stomach Is From Something We All Had In High School

Health.Mil

When a 30-year-old woman walked into a hospital complaining of stomach pains, doctors examined her for all of the typical causes one might expect: ulcer, irritable bowl syndrome, hernia, or gallstones.

But their tests found none of the normal causes.

One of her doctors reported that her heart rate was faster than normal and the lining of her abdominal wall was inflamed.

But after further investigation, her vital signs, laboratory tests, ultrasound and the scans of her liver, gallbladder and bile ducts were all normal

When they asked her if she had recently undergone a surgery, the unnamed woman replied "no." This eliminated the possibility that a surgeon accidentally left behind a foreign object, but, after looking at a CT scan, doctors realized that something metallic was definitely in there.

When they removed the object, they couldn't believe what it was. Find out for yourself on the next page!

Even though she had not had surgery and doesn't recall swallowing a piece of metal, doctors confirmed that their patient definitely had a foreign object lodged in her intestines - but what could it be?

The  2 1/2 inch-long piece of metal was a piece of dental brace wire that she had accidentally swallowed at least a decade ago!

Doctors were baffled by how she had managed to swallow it without noticing.

"The case is so unique is because normally if you swallow something like that, it presents earlier," doctor Talia Shepherd told Popular Science.

Apparently the woman had worn braces 10 years earlier, and has since had them removed. The piece she swallowed didn't cause her any pain until recently, when it caused her intestine to twist around on itself.

"We were all a bit dumbfounded," Shepherd told the magazine. "It wasn't what I was expecting to find at all."

Thankfully, surgeons were able to repair remove the object and repair the damage. Good thing they caught it in time!

[h/t WebMD / Washington Post / Popular Science]