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Subscribe to RSSThe pen is said to be mightier than the sword. But an unusual case report has shown that a pen may be mightier than stomach acid.
The case, which appeared in the British Medical Journal Case Reports, described a 76- year-old British woman sent to a GI specialist because of weight loss and diarrhea.
She was diagnosed with severe diverticulosis, a condition that's common in older people in which small pouches bulge out from the colon. But when doctors did a scanning test of her belly they noticed something strange: "A linear foreign body in the stomach." (Click here for photos.)
When asked about it, the woman remembered accidentally swallowing a black felt-tip pen 25 years earlier. (In case you're wondering, dentures and toothpicks are two of the most common items that adults accidentally swallow.)
According to her gastroenterologist Dr. Oliver Waters, who authored the case report, she was standing on her stairs using an uncapped pen to poke a spot on her tonsils. She was also holding a hand mirror to guide the pen to the exact spot. Somehow, while doing this, she lost her balance and stumbled. The fall managed to push the pen down her throat. It glided down her gullet and found a home in her tummy.
She told her husband and her doctor what had happened, but they were skeptical of the story. X-rays done at the time were normal and found no trace of the pen. Flash forward to the present, to a different doctor and even better stomach-scanning technology to investigate the case of the missing marker. More than two decades later a scan hit pay dirt: The pen.
Although the woman's current digestive problems had nothing to do with the marker she had unintentionally downed, doctors decided to remove it anyway. Their rationale was a case in the medical literature of a child accidentally swallowing a ball-point pen that bore a hole in his bowel. Incredibly, the pen had stayed in her stomach for 25 years without causing any significant damage to her GI tract, Waters says.
After bathing in stomach acid for a two-and-a-half decades, the pen was corroded and the plastic was flaky, but, amazingly, the pen still had usable ink and could write!
"This case highlights that plain abdominal x-rays may not identify ingested plastic objects and occasionally it may be worth believing the patient's account however unlikely it may be," the report advises doctors.
Write on!
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Leave a Comment:
And she writing on her tonsils? Because? Not a word of this story makes any sense.
Well it was a British woman after all.
Probably trying to throw up on the stairs!
I agree, the whole thing sounds fishy, BUT.... I used to occasionally get (and my dad still does get) little white balls of....something?....sort of like gristle, that would end up, or collect, in the little hollows on the surface of my tonsils. My dad had them so often, he got really adept at using two butter knives like big tweezers to get them out. I don't think they posed a problem, but when they got big, you could feel them, and you'd get "gaggy", and you'd really want to get them out.
And that plastic pen must have a half-life of about 10,000 years.
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Maybe I'm being too picky, but it was in her intestines, not her stomach.
Stomach acids stay in the Stomach (generally). Hence why they are called "stomach acids".
There are plenty of bacteria and enzymes in the intestines to break down food, but the acids are primarily limited to the stomach, which has a lining that can handle the acids.
Not that it would matter too much, as the plastic pen isn't effected by acid, enzyme or bacteria.
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The pen would have broken down much faster if it was out in the sun. A pen like that will last less than 100 years in direct sunlight. They get very brittle and crack into tiny pieces.
@The Angry Guy. I get them also. I usually use my toothbrush but for the really difficult times I use my pinky nail. Now I know not to try an ink pen
She was poking at a spot on her tonsils. Probably had strep throat and saw pus on the back. That's what she was doing. Not WRITING on her tonsils.
Picky Ryan: article says it was in her stomach and the medical photo shows it lodged sideways in her stomach. Picky or not, this is one for "Believe it or not." We all hope she gets better.
I stand corrected.
I just figured that with 25 years of the stomach churning, it would pass through to the intestines (which don't move) and that the writer wouldn't make a distiction.
I can't believe she didn't feel pain from it in the stomach. In the intestines, I would expect it as they don't move around. But the stomach usually will keep churning until empty.
I guess I've seen so much sloppy writing of articles on the internet, that my default is now to expect them to be inaccurate.
Actually Ryan both gastroscopy and CT scan demonstrates the pen in her stomach, not in her small intestine. Also, the small intestine is quite mobile and a person will sense stretch, but not "poking" from something like a pen.
If you have accretions on your tonsils (that's what they're called) you have Cryptic Tonsillitis and need to have them removed asap. Those are dead bacteria and they've built up on your tonsils over time.
Tonsillitis can kill. John Donne, who wrote 'Send not to ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee,' died of tonsillitis. See an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist. Regular physicians aren't able to diagnose this.
Edit: My ENT used a mirror, a flashlight and a candle to diagnose my Cryptic Tonsillitis. BTW, since the ink survived, the cap must have been on the pen.
Occasionally it may be worth believing the patient's account? Really? Is it just me or are doctors now so haughty they believe they know better than the patient what happened to them?! I know there are folks out there who make things up out of embarassment or just plain old being crazy but I believe that this is more occasional than patients who just tell the truth.
The pen didn't cause her any harm. It was operable still, and likely made in Japan.
I wonder if that self-righteousness is because she's a woman or because he's a doctor?
Ditto. They're called tonsil stones. The majority of the time they're harmless.
The pen had been in there for 25 years, wasn't the cause of her present medical issues, but the doctors operated anyway. So it really was about the money.
Makes one wonder how she could swallow something as long and rigid as a pen without gagging it back out?
Standing at the top of a flight of stairs holding a mirror writing on your tonsils with a felt tipped pen...yeah, that's normal. :-\
Yea, I usualy go for balancing on one foot on the chimney when I feel like writing a novel on my tonsils
I bet it was a BIC pen!!!
This whole story sounds like a hoax to me.
Yeah, but who could make that up? Writing on the tonsils? It would be dismissed as too absurd, yet, there are the also the scan photos. The British Medical Journal has stringent and meticulous standards, so I'll have to say "True". But I do wonder about the woman's mental health.
Dingbat.
A what? A "dingbat?" You don't do that too? "....she was standing on her stairs using an uncapped pen to poke a spot on her tonsils. She was also holding a hand mirror to guide the pen to the exact spot."
They should have told us the name of the company that made the pen! If I was the manufacturer, that would be my running commercial for television.
Well at least she has a pen to write the check for all the high dollar medical cost encountered for the removal.
This happened in the UK. She won't have to pay thousands of dollars.
Traveler - This happened in the UK. This probably wouldn't have happened in the US. God Bless America.
You're correct JK. The US is just over flowing with intelligence.
Keith - Don't be bragging too much on yourself! (ps. In America she would have been x-rayed until she glowed in the dark.)
Not only could this happen in the U.S., you wouldn't BELIEVE some of the things found in peoples GI tracts...forks, spoons, knives, money, mounds of hair, toys, electronics...and that's just via the mouth...
What the Frick? Standing on the stairs with a mirror, poking around in her mouth. HOW STUPID do you have to be to do that stand on the stairs?
One COULD assume that the top of the stairs had the most suitable light source.
Was she a sword swallower? When I was in the hospital, they had to numb my throat to insert a tube, and I still gagged.
You would have to ask her husband!
Now, that is something to write home about
Umm haaa buuhhh aahhhhh mmnnnnnn
She was probably digging out a tonsil stone. I use q-tips, myself. And never standing on a flight of stairs.
A 'tonsil stone'? Geez, go see the doctor, for heaven's sakes. You have Cryptic Tonsillitis. Your tonsils are rotten and need to come out.
T
Peridot - Tonsil stones do not always mean cryptic tonsilitis. My doctor has told me that my tonsils are healthy, my ENT has agreed, yet I still get tonsil stones occasionally. They have told me that this is a result of my chronic allergies and that I just have to live with it. Still, your advice to see a doctor is well founded, my sister had tonsilitis as a kid, and a speech impediment. Our family doctor told my mom her complaints of a sore throat were attempts to get out of school, odd because she loved school. Mom finally took her to a specialist and her tonsils were so inflamed and infected he was suprised she had not suffered long term damage. Once they were removed her speech improved to the point that you'd never know she'd had a problem.
Why didn't they just leave it in there?
Pass the bill onto the insurance company and rake in a buck or two.
Money!
Too bad it didn't pass through to her colon. She could have made big bucks writing while sitting down!
"She knew she was in trouble as she could see the ass-writing on the wall"
I've heard of TALKING out your ass, but this is ridiculous!
How many times have we all stopped, patted our pockets and said "Ya know I coulda sworn I had a pen somewhere here". Well she had us all beat!
I do wonder what her sh*t looked like when it came out! Probably had the only autographed POS in the world!
Have some compassion. Why she was doing it on a staircase, who knows? I'd guess it had to do with lighting and a mirror. But for whatever reason, it made sense for her at the time. And honestly, whom among us hasn't chided oneself for having done something that was, in hindsight, truly stupid and risky?
Best wishes for a fast and complete recovery!
The lighting at the top of the stairs was the best in the house?
The pen is mightier than the sword and it's a good think she didn't swallow a sword.
wow, im lucky if i can get a cheap ass pen to last through a sentence!
Her sentence with the pen lasted 25 years.
Why couldn't she have swallowed a Cross pen instead? Those things have been known to deflect bullets, so stomach acid should be no match for it.
Better yet, a Timex watch. The ultimate test of "takes a licking but keeps on ticking".
"I swallowed a pen."
"Nonsense, woman. You're either senile at 51 years, or a liar. Let's check this out with X-rays. Ha, we find nothing."
"Oh ... okay. No worries, then."
The mind boggles.
She must be in the ranks of the people who have died planking when they fell off a 7 story balcony.
not exactly news worthy but okay
I'd be quite cross if I swallowed a pen. Espescially if it was a Cross pen.
I "ink" you are exactly right!
WTF how do u unnintintially swallow a fking pen she must be in porn
Those crazy Brits...
she should have also swallowed a note pad, paper clips and rubber bands - to complete the set.
Re-marker-able
LOL!! re-marker-able!! *fnarr Fnarr*