Most often, a foreign body enters the stomach as a result of unintentional ingestion, less often, during injury and during surgical procedures. In most cases, the foreign body leaves the body naturally. However, if this is not possible, then objects such as a battery or a coin in the stomach tend to oxidize and corrode the mucous membrane of the organ. In this case, urgent surgical intervention to remove a foreign object.
What is a foreign object in the stomach?
Foreign body in the organs of the gastrointestinal tract - this is a foreign object that entered the body from the external environment and is not edible. Sometimes, when a foreign object enters the stomach, it happens that it can cause significant damage to the organ, which can pose a threat to human life. If foreign objects are not recognized and removed from the stomach in a timely manner, a serious disruption of its functioning may occur; when the body moves, the mucous membrane may be disrupted, which will cause bleeding, inflammation, and perforation of the organ. If there is a foreign object in the stomach, the patient feels discomfort, pain, and in some cases the person may die if serious damage occurs.
Frequently occurring species
Depending on the origin of foreign bodies, the following types are distinguished:
- bodies that were intentionally or carelessly swallowed by a person;
- pebbles that formed in the body as a result of a malfunction of certain organs;
- bodies and objects that entered the stomach through penetrating trauma and wounds;
- instruments that are left in the human body during surgical operations.
Causes
A foreign body in the stomach may appear after surgery. Most often, foreign inedible bodies enter the human stomach orally, much less often as a result of wounds and other penetrating injuries. The reasons for this condition are:
- Eating food that contains a large number of rough, indigestible components (bones from meat and fish, fruit seeds).
- A person chews food poorly, which is why he may not notice a foreign body in a dish and swallow it.
- A person eats food while intoxicated.
- An object can enter the body while a person is unconscious.
- A person has a desire to harm himself.
- For open damage.
- During operations.
- A cholecystogastric fistula, stones, and salt deposits have formed in the body.
Symptoms
If there is a large foreign object in the body, then the following symptoms occur:
Large items
- cutting pain appears in the epigastric region;
- sometimes spasmodic pain in the epigastric region begins to develop;
- a person becomes nauseous and begins to vomit, but there is no bile in the vomit;
- there is a feeling of heaviness in the stomach;
- appears bad taste in the mouth;
- dehydration occurs, which causes the patient to experience an imbalance of electrolytes in the body;
- Body temperature may rise for no reason.
Small
Examples of small stomach objects removed in the endoscopy department. When small objects penetrate the stomach, most often no symptoms are observed. If they are not acute, they most often leave the body naturally. However, it is worth noting that objects such as a battery begin to oxidize in the stomach or esophagus, causing a burning sensation and severe pain. This is dangerous, since under the influence of acid the walls of organs are corroded, which can cause death. That's why they're so small and dangerous items must be kept out of the reach of children to avoid harm.
Acute
When swallowing sharp objects, a person may be accompanied by:
- severe sharp pain at the location of the object;
- intense and not very bleeding;
- through damage to the organ wall;
- acute peritonitis;
- abscess.
In a child, these symptoms develop rapidly, so if there is a suspicion that the baby has swallowed any sharp object (for example, it could be a needle), you need to urgently call an ambulance to avoid serious complications.
Multiple
If a person has swallowed a lot of foreign bodies, then in this case he may feel:
- pain in the upper abdomen, which is expressed by aching and nagging pain; a person may be accompanied by constant nausea, sometimes vomiting;
- the patient feels unpleasant metallic taste in the mouth;
- there is a lack of appetite;
- in some cases, body temperature rises.
If a foreign body enters a person’s stomach as a result of a gunshot wound, then in this case the condition rapidly worsens, since in addition to the foreign body, internal bleeding develops in the body, which must be urgently stopped and then try to remove the object as quickly as possible.
Diagnostics
If there is a suspicion that a foreign body is present in a person’s body, it is necessary to immediately make an appointment with a gastroenterologist, who will send the patient for a diagnostic test, with the help of which you can determine the location of the object in order to remove it as quickly and without complications as possible. The doctor will advise you to undergo some of the diagnostic procedures, namely:
- fluoroscopy of the gastrointestinal tract;
- gastroscopy;
- esophagogastrodudenoscopy.
Which diagnostic method is more appropriate in a particular case is decided by the attending physician based on the general health of the patient.
Children's desire to taste everything is their natural reaction to the outside world, a desire to explore the things around them with the help of taste buds.
Often, licking and trying to gnaw or bite the object being examined does not end there - your child can swallow it. Foreign bodies end up in children's stomachs more often than in adults, appendices are operated on and heart attacks occur.According to statistics, every 5-6th child in the world swallows something that is clearly not suitable for food. Parents need to be extremely vigilant so that a small foreign object does not cause big trouble.
Reasons why children swallow foreign objects
You should not blame the child if he pulled a foreign object into his mouth, and this caused problems with his health. IN childhood there are a number of objective physiological reasons why children swallow all sorts of unnecessary things:
At what age can the problem arise?
The child may put a foreign object into his mouth as soon as he reaches it. And this means that The “starting point” when parents need to be very vigilant is the 7-8th month of life, when the baby begins to crawl and tries to reach unknown objects that are new to him.
At this time, small objects seem to be created for parents to remain in constant tension - the child’s vision is not yet thorough, he is just learning to focus it, which means that, first of all, he will fix his gaze on a small bright object that will be on his way of plastun crawling through space children's world. Sometimes a mother is saved by the fact that due to imperfect focusing of vision, the baby may simply not see an object that is dangerous in terms of swallowing, even in absolute proximity to himself - but you should not rely on this, vigilance should be maximum.
According to statistics, children most often swallow foreign objects at the age of 1-3 years. During this period, they become more nimble, many are already walking, which means that the reach of the tchotchke, which must definitely be pulled into the mouth, increases.
But the age of young “swallowers” (even if not swords) is not limited to either three or five years. Then the age of all kinds of experiments begins, when children can consciously and even deliberately “bite off” an inedible object. This is especially true for those tomboys who are in a team (in kindergarten or in a yard “gang”) and subconsciously try to show off to others - something just to show off. Also Funny cases have been described when children even of average age school age, while studying homework and mechanically fiddling with some object in their hands, they could start fiddling with it in their mouth and at the same time accidentally pull it into the esophagus. All these examples mean that parents should always be vigilant - whether the child is 7 months old or 7 years old.
Signs that a child has swallowed a foreign object
The fact that the child swallowed small item(nut, bead, small denomination coin), can often go unnoticed. Mom finds out about this by chance, when the swallowed object, having passed through the gastrointestinal tract, comes out with feces.
You can suspect something is wrong if a child’s behavior changes sharply - he feels guilty (although he cannot explain), calms down and stops behaving as he usually does. In this case, you should ask him what happened and whether he swallowed a multi-colored “candy.” This must be done as affectionately as possible, even with the use of some diplomacy - otherwise the child, for fear of being punished, will stubbornly hide the fact of swallowing the object. Naturally, the benefit of such questions will be if the child is at the age when he realizes that he has done “something wrong.”
If a foreign body more than one centimeter in diameter gets into the child’s digestive tract, it manifests itself immediately, as a result of trouble. Symptoms that may indicate what happened:
In the vast majority of cases, the child swallows a foreign object commensurate with the diameter of the esophagus, and therefore the entire gastrointestinal tract - this means that it is able to exit naturally. In some cases, this does not happen because the object gets stuck in the folds of the gastrointestinal tract.
Then its presence in the gastrointestinal tract can only be suspected when questioning the child and the symptoms described above. Although it happens that a diagnosis can only be made using instrumental research methods (for example) or after the fact, when a foreign object comes out.
Objects with sharp edges that seem impossible to swallow are often swallowed (pins, paper clips, pushpins, and so on). In such cases Great chance that if they get stuck in any part of the digestive tract, they will not come out on their own either. Their presence in the gastrointestinal tract will be indicated by the child’s complaints of acute pain due to irritation of the mucous membrane.
Help. What not to do
Instead of multiple useless (and sometimes dangerous) actions, call a qualified doctor as soon as possible who will provide competent assistance to the child.
If the child begins to cough and choke slightly, he should be placed on his knee face down so that the upper half of the body is lowered, while lightly tapping his fingers on the back between the shoulder blades. However, do not overdo it with the tapping force!
We recommend reading:Prevention of the condition
Rather, it lies not in a medical field, but in a household one - parents need to constantly monitor the baby so that he does not stuff an object of interest into his mouth, and also, if possible, limit the child’s ability to come into contact with small objects.
If the child has grown up and heeds his parents’ admonitions, he should be strictly prohibited from putting foreign objects into his mouth.
Kovtonyuk Oksana Vladimirovna, medical observer, surgeon, consultant doctor
Every person remembers how, as a child, his parents frightened him with the story that if you swallow a needle, it will travel through the veins to the heart, causing death. But is this really true? What actually happens if you swallow a needle, what determines the degree of danger? Let's figure out how dangerous this incident is for the life of the human body and what to do to avoid fatal consequences.
Can a person accidentally swallow a needle?
No matter how funny and ridiculous it may sound, there are many sudden cases in which you can swallow a needle:
- A sane, normal person will not just swallow a needle. But imagine a situation where you need to sew something up, and in order to straighten the fabric or see how the seam turns out, you put the needle in your mouth and suddenly sneezed, yawned, or hiccupped. In half of these moments, the needle, under the influence of air, instantly gets into the throat. A large percentage of cases of needles entering the body are among fashion designers and seamstresses.
- Very often small children swallow needles. Studying the world, the little ones are testing everything. Crawling and playing on the floor, it is not difficult for them to find a needle that their mother accidentally dropped earlier.
- There is an ancient tradition of fortune telling using cookies, which determine a person’s fate. Small notes with wishes, buttons, decorations and even needles and pins are baked inside them. From hour to hour there are cases when during this fortune-telling people accidentally swallow a needle.
- In ancient times, a ritual of “devotion” was performed, during which a person swallowed a needle to prove his submission, fidelity, innocence and purity. The survivor after swallowing the needle was considered a righteous person, and the deceased was considered a liar.
- Prison inmates often use a needle to try to get into the infirmary. Others put needles in the food of their fellow inmates to take revenge for insults.
- In some cases, people quite deliberately swallow needles and make money from it. For example, when performing tricks, circus performances.
What to do if you swallow a needle
Everyone should know the precautions against needles getting into the body, so that if emergency, without panic, be able to provide assistance to the victim. The main thing is to remember that even the smallest swallowed needle can cause serious harm to a person’s health, from cutting pain to death. The most important action you will need to take is to call the emergency service medical care. If possible, go to the hospital immediately for an x-ray. Only an experienced doctor will be able to locate the needle and remove it.
What actions to take
If you find yourself far from a hospital, or there is no hospital in your area, you must take measures to remove the needle yourself. Good effect can give one like this folk method: take a small (1-2 grams) piece of cotton wool and moisten it well with Vaseline oil (liquid paraffin), roll into a ball and swallow. After 3-4 hours, eat semolina or oatmeal. You need to eat at least a plate of porridge, or better yet two. These dishes have an enveloping effect and will protect the insides from being pierced by a needle. If Vaseline oil no, use only porridge.
What not to do
A person’s life depends on timely, qualified assistance, while incorrect advice is harmful to health. Due to the contraction of muscle fibers, the needles can move in the tissues of the body. Once in the body, the needle (smooth, sharp and straight) is capable of moving 10-15 centimeters. So if you or someone else swallows a needle:
- Do not make sudden movements, squats or bends, reduce motor activity. During body movements, the needle that gets into the muscles also begins to move and can cause harm with its sharp end. Lie down on the bed and wait for the ambulance to arrive.
- Do not induce vomiting. The needle will no longer come out, but it can damage the insides.
- Don't shake your head or take big sips. If a needle is stuck in your throat, the emergency worker will pull it out like a fish bone.
- Don't knock in the area chest, do not press your stomach, all this will lead to even more injuries.
- You should also not use laxatives.
- If you swallow a needle Small child, do not turn it over or shake it.
How to determine that a child has swallowed a needle: symptoms
It is impossible to predict the actions of children. Toddlers pull various objects they like to their mouths, learning new and unexplored things, including sharp ones, such as a needle. Parents do not always have time to keep track of the baby, and he will not be able to tell what happened to him. How can you understand that a child has swallowed a needle and how to act in such a situation? Symptoms by which you can recognize a needle inside a child:
- Active secretion of saliva.
- The baby shows signs of anxiety. The child has stopped playing, refuses food, something hurts, and it hurts to swallow.
- The appearance of cough, symptoms of suffocation, nausea, the baby does not have enough air.
- Redness on the face.
- Increased heart rate and sweating.
- Temperature increase.
What happens if you swallow a needle - consequences
It is impossible to accurately predict the consequences after swallowing a needle. But there are several scenarios in which events can develop:
- The most terrible and dangerous case is when a needle gets into the lung or heart, making a hole there. If surgery is not performed in time, death is possible. In the lungs (during a delayed operation), inflammation occurs, provoked by a needle puncture, which can lead to the loss of part of this organ.
- It happens that a swallowed needle ends up in the stomach. Then 80% of victims have a chance that it will be released naturally in the feces. The remaining 20% of patients have to undergo surgery to remove the needle from the body. It very rarely happens that a needle pierces the stomach or intestines, which is dangerous for infection and peritonitis.
- Sometimes the needle settles in soft tissues, while the person sometimes feels aching pain. If it is not removed in time, the needle will begin to rust, which will lead to inflammatory processes.
- Often the needle gets stuck in the roof of the mouth or throat.
Video: a man swallowed a sewing needle
We don't think about possible consequences swallowed needles until they touch us or our relatives, friends, loved ones. Many people do not even realize the severity of the consequences of swallowing a needle. When a person swallows a needle due to careless use, serious disruptions to his quality of life occur. For clear example, O possible problems with health after a needle gets inside a person, look at the video:
A selection of stories about somewhat “unusual” behavior of people. Who manages to swallow what?
Piggy bank in the stomach
This unusual case occurred at the University of Tennessee Medical Science Center. Doctors are already accustomed to removing patients from their stomachs. various items, which should not be there, but doctors from the University of Tennessee Medical Research Center discovered a whole treasure in the patient’s stomach. The woman came to them in a weakened state. One of her relatives reported that she swallowed several coins. After taking a photo abdominal cavity, doctors found coins in the intestines and tried to remove them with the help of a laxative, but after some time they remained there as a dead weight. With the help of additional examination, it was possible to find out that the coins were not in the large intestine, but in the stomach, and surgical intervention was necessary to remove them.
As a result of the operation, experts discovered a real piggy bank: 585 pennies, 17 5-cent coins, 12 10-cent coins, 8 25-cent coins, 1 German mark.
Kinders with a surprise
What do doctors most often extract from the stomachs of small patients? Correspondents of Moskovsky Komsomolets in Kursk got acquainted with this collection. You won’t surprise surgeons with needles, pins, gears, batteries, keys and toys. Most often, children swallow coins, but there are also very unusual specimens. Thus, one 14-year-old girl, who considered herself so light that one day she would rise into the air and the wind would carry her out to sea, once ate 6 aluminum teaspoons, each 15 centimeters long.
Caution: New Year
Throughout the New Year holidays, ambulance doctors save victims of the festive feast. Many of them even have to be hospitalized. The problem is not that people stuff their bellies to the point of intestinal obstruction. Although this also happens. Injuries to the esophagus occur. For example, one man choked on a piece of meat and began to push it inside with a fork. He managed to do it. The meat fell into the stomach along with the fork. The operation performed by the doctors was also successful: the man survived.
But the woman who swallowed a fish bone - alas... The small but insidious bone pierced the esophagus and aorta and the unfortunate woman died from arterial bleeding. What people don't swallow New Year: light bulbs from garlands, women's earrings, pieces of tinsel, they bite off the teeth of aluminum forks, they eat vodka in glasses! But these are not the consequences of overeating, but rather of overdrinking.
Swallow a nail
Svetlana Nikiforova
“Sometimes you suddenly notice that toys have disappeared somewhere. You ask the child where the toys are, and he points to his mouth. You will be very surprised when you find out how many different objects they swallow,” said American Emergency Doctor Frank McGeorge at a recent press conference.
Once a crying mother brought her 18-year-old daughter to the endoscopy department of the Novocheboksarsk city hospital.
It turned out that the girl was planning to lose weight and insert a probe into the esophagus after each meal to flush out the stomach.
The girl did not find the probe, she had a very vague idea of human anatomy, and therefore decided that the 30-centimeter rubber tube used in the apparatus for measuring pressure would be enough for her.
After eating, the voluntary martyr put a rather hard tube in her mouth and... swallowed it! I was afraid to tell my parents and walked around with a foreign object in my stomach for two weeks.
In the hospital they suffered with her for a long time before they removed the hose, which took the shape of the letter “omega”. By this time, contact ulcers had formed on the walls of the stomach.
At the end of June 2006 in Vietnam, doctors at one of the hospitals performed perhaps one of the most amazing operations in the world, and certainly the most unusual during their practice.
A 43-year-old woman from Can Tho was admitted to a military hospital complaining of severe abdominal pain. After the doctors took an x-ray, they were simply dumbfounded when they saw a pile of strange objects inside.
It turned out that the patient had 119 nails in her stomach, each 7.5 cm long. Moreover, some of them have already become quite rusty during their stay in the woman’s body. Without wasting a minute, the doctors decided on the need for surgery and removed all the otherworldly objects.
According to experts, the woman’s stomach was scratched all over by nails, but, fortunately, there were no serious wounds. Today, the patient’s life is not in danger, and she is recovering at full speed. Nevertheless, the question of where such an amount of metal came from in the woman’s stomach remains open. The woman was declared sane and was not registered in a mental hospital.
Is your baby's stomach no bigger than a thimble?
“We regularly find coins, coins, and more coins in children’s stomachs,” the doctor shared with reporters. “Sometimes you come across more exotic items, but the real record belongs to a little boy who swallowed a magnetic toy. He took it apart into parts and ate each one separately. Once in the child’s stomach, the toy reconnected itself!”
Swallowing a thermometer is also a record. Doctors removed a medical item from the stomach of one of the patients at a surgical clinic in the Romanian city of Constanta. 25-year-old electrician Daniel Danciu lived with him for two decades, unaware of the mortal danger.
"Consult a doctor young man forced by everyday circumstances. He was applying for a job abroad and had to undergo a medical examination. It was then that the radiologists discovered a foreign object in the patient’s stomach and suggested immediate surgery. When I woke up after anesthesia, and the doctors showed me the thermometer they had removed, I decided that they were laughing - the situation seemed so implausible,” says Daniel. »
A mother who came to the hospital to visit her son helped solve the riddle. She remembered that five-year-old Dani once fell ill with measles: there were many children in the ward where he was lying, and at some point the nurse caring for the patients became distracted and forgot about the thermometers.
But a resident of India accidentally swallowed a thermometer twenty-seven years ago, and all this time it lay in the depths of his stomach and did not bother him at all with its presence. It was only when Probir Das had health problems related to back pain and he turned to the clinic for help that the doctors learned about the Indian’s “secret.”
The surprise of doctors knew no bounds when an X-ray image showed a foreign object resembling a small fountain pen in the patient’s stomach. Moreover, the patient himself was no less amazed than the Aesculapians, because, according to him, he did not remember swallowing anything like that.
As a result of a simple operation, the thermometer was removed from the depths of Probir Das's stomach. It is noteworthy that for twenty-seven years Probir led active image life, and he was not tormented by any stomach pain or discomfort. All this time there was a danger that the thermometer might break. In this case, the spilled mercury and glass fragments would have killed Probir, but, fortunately, this did not happen.
Get rid of the army
However, you don't have to be crazy to swallow all sorts of nasty things. Sometimes circumstances force this. For example, if you really don’t want to serve in the army.
What the soldiers don’t do to “make a mess.” But what the border guard of one of the units in Primorye discovered can claim a record in the notorious Guinness Book. Hoping for an early demobilization, the young man swallowed 19 twelve-centimeter metal hooks, which together made up almost half of the structure of an army armored bed.
A week later, the soldier became very ill, and he was forced to see doctors. To remove all the metal from the young man’s stomach, it was necessary to insert the endoscope into the patient’s body more than forty times. All this time, the soldier was conscious and even helped the doctors count how many hooks remained in his stomach.
