Photo: didesign021 (Getty)
Well that’s gross.
If reading about people who performed surgery on themselves didn’t gross you out perhaps the story below will. A 30-year-old Australian woman, who had her braces removed ten years ago, was pretty damn shocked to hear the following: a wire from the braces was in her intestine. That’s right, kids, doctors made the crazy discovery after the unidentified woman showed up at Charles Gairdne Hospital with abdominal cramping.
At first, doctors thought the pain was caused by her gall bladder and sent her home after it stopped. But two days later, the woman returned to the hospital and doctors did a CT scan on her. Turns out, there was a wire-shaped object in her small intestine, according to Live Science.
Doctors performed emergency surgery on the woman and removed a 2.8-inch-long piece of orthodontic wire that had pierced through several parts of the small intestine, causing the organ to twist around itself. Dr. Talia Shepherd, one of the surgeons who operated on the woman, admits being shocked by the discovery.
“We were all a bit dumbfounded. It wasn’t what I was expecting to find at all.”
“People normally present much earlier,” Shepherd said. “Kind of right after they’ve swallowed it or when it’s in the stomach really, because that’s obviously where it has a high risk of causing a perforation.”
But not to worry, the woman had the wire removed and she’s all fine now. Although she might try Invisalign braces next time around.
