Beware of chicken wings at your Labor Day barbecue.
A man required life-saving surgery after a piece of bone burst through his appendix, causing internal bleeding.
The 77-year-old man from Tunisia came to the doctor complaining of a nagging pain in his stomach.
He had no fever, no changes in his bowel movements and no irregular heartbeat, so the doctors suspected that there was a mass in his intestines.
But when they put him under a CT scan, they found a two-centimeter-long piece of bone — about the width of three number 2 pencils — sticking out of his appendix. It was causing an infection that could have been fatal.
The bone, visible here as the solid white line in the middle of the four thin red lines, was lodged in the patient’s appendix
Humans cannot digest chicken bones, but they are brittle. This means that if swallowed, they can break into sharp pieces that can pierce the soft tissues of the gastrointestinal tract.
Doctors struggled to determine what caused the condition because the patient could not remember swallowing anything that could have entered his abdomen, the journal report said. SAGE Open Medical Case Reports said.
They had to cut him open to get the bone out.
They removed his appendix, the chicken bone, stitched it up and sent him home after monitoring him for four days.
Because the patient was old and had no teeth, it is possible that he swallowed the piece without chewing, so he did not know what was in store for him, wrote doctors at the Charles Nicolle Hospital in Tunisia.
At a check-up a year later, doctors confirmed that the incident had had no lasting side effects.
When someone swallows something they shouldn’t, the body can swallow it or it can get stuck in the colon or intestines. Often doctors choose to fish it out using a long tube called an endoscope.
Only in about 1 in 2000 cases does an object become lodged in the appendix.
Sometimes people with a foreign body in their appendix also have symptoms. That could explain why the patient had only mild symptoms.
In about 11 percent of all cases where an object became lodged in the appendix, the object was not discovered until surgery was performed for another reason.
The appendix is a small pouch attached to the end of the intestine and it is a somewhat mysterious organ.
Scientists think it harbors bacteria that the gut needs to aid digestion, but it doesn’t seem to have much use.
Some people are even born without one. People can live without an appendix without much difference.
That’s a good thing, because according to the U.S. government, a ruptured appendix is a fairly common occurrence, affecting 280,000 Americans each year. American Medical Association.
After the 2cm piece of bone was removed from the patient, doctors had to remove his appendix
A ruptured appendix occurs when a blockage in the intestines allows bacteria to multiply out of control, causing an infection called appendicitis.
Sometimes the infection becomes so severe that the pressure from the bacteria causes the small organ to burst.
If a ruptured appendix is left untreated, it can lead to a life-threatening infection, leading to sepsis, in which bacteria spread through the blood and cause major organ systems to fail. according to Johns Hopkins .
The Tunisian patient’s appendix was not ruptured, but it was punctured. Doctors determined that the wound was infected and could be life-threatening.
Chicken is one of the most consumed meats in the world. It is estimated that the average American eats about 100 pounds of broiler chicken per year, according to the USDA.
Humans cannot digest chicken bones, but they are brittle and can break off when swallowed, creating sharp pieces that can damage your intestines. For this reason, medical authorities advise against swallowing the bones.
According to the study authors, this case underscores the need for physicians treating patients with strange symptoms to ask them about any factors that may have contributed to their illness.
The authors wrote: ‘This case underscores the need for a high index of suspicion for atypical clinical presentations and the continued need for research to improve our understanding and treatment of this rare condition, ultimately improving patient outcomes.’