Is it good or bad for foreign objects to invade the human body?

Fish bones, melon seeds, peanuts, batteries, toys, glass beads... If we list all the foreign objects that enter the human body, we can probably open a special museum. According to statistics, nearly 3,000 children die from accidental suffocation caused by swallowing foreign objects or tracheal obstruction every year in my country.

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In movies and TV shows, "driving nails or implanting foreign objects directly into the body" is not an uncommon operation. But we are not superheroes, and we don't know martial arts. Apart from some necessary treatment methods, foreign objects entering the human body can cause serious damage to the body.

Life-saving treatment

In medicine, there is a type of foreign body invasion method that can really save lives. For example, doctors implant stents in the hearts of patients with coronary heart disease during treatment to open narrow blood vessels and give them a glimmer of life; they install pacemakers in the bodies of patients with chronic arrhythmias to send electrical signals to the heart, making it beat at a set frequency.

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However, even these seemingly life-saving foreign objects often cause accidents after entering the human body, such as the case below.

Case

A male, 11 years old, had swelling, pain and deformity in the middle of his right thigh due to a car accident. He was diagnosed with a right femoral fracture after examination. He underwent an emergency open reduction under general anesthesia and fixed the broken bone on a bone plate. However, just 3 months after the operation, the bone plate in the thigh broke, and he underwent another open reduction and internal fixation with an elastic intramedullary nail.

Bone plates and intramedullary nails (nails) are load-bearing foreign bodies made by metal processing. Steel plates are mostly screwed in to achieve axial and rotational stability, while intramedullary nails (nails) fully exert their dynamic stability potential through contact pressure with the bone cortex and three-point support. Both of them protect the healing and shaping of our bones in the body, but as foreign bodies in the body, there is still a risk of fracture, metal allergy or rejection.

Every year, there are endless incidents of children and teenagers breaking bones while playing. What may be waiting for them is cold metal foreign objects. Therefore, parents must take good care of their children, and students themselves must also be careful to prevent fractures. Once an accident occurs, seek medical attention in time.

The risk of decoration is high

Unlike the group of people who insert foreign objects to save their lives, some people who pursue individuality and seek excitement actively insert them on their bodies, such as ear studs, lip studs, navel studs, prosthetic rhinoplasty, prosthetic implants, etc. However, this kind of decorative foreign object may have the risk of leakage, rupture, capsular contracture, etc.

American rapper Lil Uzi Vert once implanted a pink diamond worth $24 million on his forehead. Netizens joked that he was "Erlang Shen's American clone." Later, he had the diamond removed due to suspected bacterial infection.

Image source: Internet

From ear piercing to ear dilation, earlobe stretching, to implanting various novel thin sheets and chips into ears, eyeballs, and limbs, people seem to regard piercing metal into soft bodies as a combination of hardness and softness. However, they do not know that it will cause bleeding, infection, scarring, and even life-threatening.

Case

Female, 18 years old, a fashionista. One week after piercing her right ear, she developed local redness, swelling and pain, followed by gradual oozing of yellowish-white mucopurulent secretions. After repeated anti-inflammatory treatments, a rigid keloid was formed locally. For the sake of aesthetics, she was admitted to the hospital again for surgical excision and plastic surgery.

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There are certain risks in the acts of self-beautification and implanting foreign objects in the human body. For the sake of personal safety, it is recommended that you think twice before acting.

Beware of unexpected intrusions

In the emergency department, we often encounter many cases of foreign objects accidentally entering the body, such as steel nails or iron rods inserted into the head; batteries or steel balls accidentally swallowed; peanuts accidentally inhaled due to choking and coughing; and pencils and other objects inserted into the vagina or anus.

In the next case, the foreign body that entered the body by mistake was a string of magnetic beads. Such objects gather together due to the strong magnetic force, tightly adsorbing the intestinal and stomach walls together, causing gastric mucosal edema and ulcers in mild cases, and ischemic necrosis and perforation of the intestinal and stomach walls in severe cases, and may even lead to death. Since there may not be typical symptoms in the early stage, and "naughty children" are not good at expressing themselves, when parents find out, the condition may have been quite serious.

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Case

A 4-year-old girl went to the hospital for treatment due to unbearable abdominal pain and mental depression. An abdominal X-ray examination revealed that there were 10 small beads hidden in her abdominal cavity. It turned out that the child had accidentally eaten magnetic steel beads sold on the market, which caused foreign bodies in the digestive tract. At this time, it was impossible to remove the magnetic beads through digestive endoscopy, and only surgical laparotomy was required. During the operation, multiple intestinal perforations with intestinal adhesions and obstructions were found. Through the doctor's strenuous rescue and suturing one by one, the patient finally recovered.

So how can we prevent it? First, strengthen supervision. Parents should accompany their children when they eat or play with toys. Secondly, choose relatively safe children's toys, and batteries, medicines, needles and other dangerous items must be properly stored. If a foreign object is found to be swallowed, it should be sent to the hospital immediately. According to the size, location and nature of the foreign object, choose "wait for natural excretion", "endoscopic treatment" or "surgical intervention".

With the advancement of medical technology, items such as steel plates, heart stents, prostheses, artificial lenses, chips, etc. have begun to serve our life and health. However, while we enjoy these foreign objects that do not belong to any part of the body, we must also be wary of the various accidents and dangers they bring.

About the Author

Wei Yi, MD.

·END·

Editor: Ren Yalin

Source: Chongqing Science and Technology Museum