Foreign body ingestion can be particularly difficult to manage especially if the details surrounding the ingestion are unknown. In the U.S., a case was presented about an adolescent who swallowed magnets without his recollection.
Unusual Case of Foreign Body Ingestion
The teen was reported to experience cramping and abdominal pain. He was presented to a hospital emergency department where scans revealed multiple objects in his stomach and intestines.
Due to the lack of specialized equipment needed for further analysis, the patient was sent to another hospital. A series of scans and X-rays confirmed the presence of metallic items, and it took a few more examinations with an endoscope to reveal their true nature.
The metallic objects were identified to be a stack of three gray discs, each measuring a third of an inch (8 mm) wide. Experts suspect them to be super-strong neodymium magnets embedded in an ulcer in the stomach wall. It was confirmed that the stack had been there long enough to start causing some damage.
The magnets were easily removed with forceps and a small surgical net. Over the next two days, further investigation showed that the procedure was not yet over. Doctors discovered more magnets that bury their way through the large intestine. In this spot, signs of rot were already setting in.
Three of these magnets could be removed during a colonoscopy, but the rest would require surgery. Fifteen more magnets were removed, with most of them already pinched together and began to erode a hole through the large and small intestine.
The timely removal of the magnets and the administration of antibiotics prevented the patient from suffering the pain of a hole in his gut that leaks contents into his abdomen. After six days of recovering in hospital, the teenager was finally doing well, eating and drinking as normal with less pain.
The story presents a mysterious case on how the magnets get there in the first place. The patient and his family are convinced that it was all an accident which most likely took place during a sleepwalking episode.
Swallowing foreign objects while asleep is very unusual, while having eating disorder that manifest while sleeping could be common. On the other hand, ingesting magnets while fully awake is more common, especially among young children. Cases such as this prompt emergency care providers in the U.S. to warn parents to be more vigilant and put magnets out of reach of children.
Dangers of Magnet Ingestion
From 2009 to 2011, emergency departments in the U.S. have reported 1,700 magnet ingestions. These involve rare-earth, high-powered magnets which are different from the typical refrigerator magnets. They have been widely used in kitchen utensils, toys, desk items, and other household products.
Ingestion of multiple high-powered magnets poses high risk of morbidity and mortality. They attract each other across the walls of the gastrointestinal tract and can cause perforation, tissue necrosis, ischemia, peritonitis, obstruction, fistula formation, oe death.
Almost 80% of foreign body ingestions involving high-powered magnets result in endoscopic or surgical intervention. When a child ingested these objects, adults should seek professional help immediately and should not wait for the magnet to pass.
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