Orthodontic wire removed from woman’s intestine 10 years later

An Australian woman had an orthodontic wire removed from her small intestine 10 years after she took off her braces.

The seven-centimetre piece of orthodontic wire punctured her small intestine causing her to feel agonizing pain. The 30-year-old woman went to the emergency room at the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital near Perth.

Doctors thought the woman’s gallbladder was causing the pain so they sent her home after she started feeling better. But as days persisted, the pain came back and doctors took a closer look.

“After looking at the CT scan, at first we thought it was a fish bone, because that’s a pretty common thing to find in the stomach,” Dr. Talia Shepherd, who treated the woman told CNN. “But when we went to ask the patient if she remembered swallowing anything, she had no recollection.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "After looking at the CT scan, at first we thought it was a fish bone, because that's a pretty common thing to find in the stomach," Dr. Talia Shepherd, who treated the woman told <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/07/health/dental-braces-intestine-10-years-study/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CNN.</a> "But when we went to ask the patient if she remembered swallowing anything, she had no recollection."

The incident was reported in a study published Monday in the medical journal BMJ Case Reports.

According to the report, since the small intestine — between the stomach and the large intestine — had been punctured in several places, it had twisted around on itself.

Since the woman was feeling extreme pain, doctors decided to operate on the woman and remove the foreign object.

The wire did not cause any long-term damage.

According to the medical report, this kind of incident is quite rare. “The patient had not worn orthodontic braces for 10 years and did not recall ingesting the wire or having her braces wire go missing.”

Doctors believe the wire wasn’t noticed for so long because it didn’t cause any pain until it punctured the small bowel.

Shepherd notes that those with braces shouldn’t be worried.

“The chances of swallowing a wire from your braces is very low,” she said. “There might be a higher chance if you’re sedated and undergo a dental procedure. But this is a very unusual case.”

However, doctors say this is a lesson for the medical world. The report indicates that foreign objects should be considered as a cause of abdominal pain in patients with no surgical history.