If you wear/wore braces, this is now your worst fear.
Wearing braces can be a painful experience as it is without the likes of this happening.
A woman in Australia has had a piece of dental wire removed from her small intestine despite having got her braces off ten years ago.
The woman, who is in her 30s, went to her local hospital in Australia complaining about cramping and serious abdominal pain.
At first, doctors thought the pain might have been related to the woman’s gallbladder and she was released from the hospital when the pain had settled.
She returned two days later though and once again sat in the emergency department with extreme pain in her stomach.
The doctors did a CT scan on the woman and discovered that some object had punctured her small intestine in several places.
We were never good at science in school but your small intestine is the stop gap between your stomach and large intestine and absorbs nutrients and allows non-absorbed food to head to the large intestine.
Doctors thought at first that it was a fish bone that had done the damage and asked the woman if she remembered swallowing anything to which she replied no.
Although she hadn’t worn braces in a decade, doctors found a seven-centimetre piece of wire from her braces which perforated her bowel.
The people of Twitter who had a history with braces were just as frightened about this story as we were and couldn’t believe what had happened…
Well, that's a nightmare: swallowing part of your braces, and having them come back to bite you a decade later. https://t.co/gqyr1hjNu9 pic.twitter.com/5naBX0ujAS
— Mary Beth Griggs (@MaryBethGriggs) August 8, 2017
anyways now i have another fear https://t.co/Bol17Ai0Ab
— Ó Murchadha (@byzantium2012) August 7, 2017
https://twitter.com/XOXOLucyy/status/894693988040454145
Omg! This freaks me out. I wore braces for 2 & a half years. So painful. Don't even want to remember it. 😬 https://t.co/mtSi50zN7R
— Kimberly Norman (@KimBNorman) August 7, 2017
Of course, there’s always one wise guy…
Good news is her intestine is now perfectly aligned. https://t.co/xIqSFrQ8u0
— Crutnacker (@Crutnacker) August 7, 2017
The full report from the hospital on the matter can be found here.
