Doctors Remove 29 Spoons, 19 Toothbrushes From Patient’s Stomach (pic)

Doctors at Devnandani Hospital, Hapur, India successfully removed 50 foreign objects from the stomach of a 40-year-old man after a five-hour surgery earlier this month.

The patient, who was brought in on September 17 with severe stomach pain, vomiting, and weakness, was found to have swallowed 29 steel spoons, 19 toothbrushes, and two pens. Scans revealed the unusual collection, shocking the medical team.

Lead surgeon Dr. Shyam Kumar said, “I have never seen so many foreign bodies in one patient.” He explained that the objects had been broken into parts before being ingested.

Hospital officials said the man had recently been admitted to a de-addiction centre in Ghaziabad and began swallowing the items in protest at being taken there.

Medical experts suggested the behaviour may be linked to a psychiatric condition such as pica disorder, in which people compulsively eat non-food items.

The patient is said to be recovering after the operation.

He was said to have later told doctors that he had felt mistreated and deprived of food at the rehabilitation centre, which left him frustrated and helpless.

“He said he had felt mistreated and deprived of food at the de-addiction centre, which left him angry and helpless. In his agitation, he began swallowing objects to harm himself, a desperate act of self-injury,” the report read.

Hindustan Times reports that in a similar case from 2022, 63 spoons were recovered from the stomach of a patient in UP’s Muzaffarnagar.

The man identified as Vijay was reportedly a drug addict who had been admitted to a de-addiction centre, where he had been eating spoons for a year.

HT had also reported back in 2019 that a team of doctors in Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi recovered spoons, screwdrivers, toothbrushes, a kitchen knife and a door latch from the stomach of a man suffering from a major mental disorder.