Man's stomach pain turns out to be cigarette lighter, successfully removed

(Representational image)

New Delhi: Something as normal as a stomach pain has often turned out to be cases that sound extremely bizarre for doctors.

In another such incident, a 49-year-old American man complaining of constant stomach pain underwent a surgery only to learn that it was due to a cigarette lighter he had ingested, which was leaking fluid into his gut.

A report on the case that was published in August this year said that the man went to the hospital complaining of pain in his stomach along with nausea and vomiting in the August of 2016.

According to the Independent, the report, published in the journal Case Reports in Emergency Medicine, explains that foreign bodies that have been ingested usually pass seamlessly through the gastrointestinal tract.

While the man's blood and urine tests couldn't diagnose the problem, an X-ray revealed the culprit. Sitting in an upside-down position, was the cigarette lighter which was dispensing fluid. This caused him to develop a “nonbleeding cratered gastric ulcer” 5mm in diameter at the widest point.

However it wasn’t the lighter fluid alone that was responsible for tearing a hole in the man’s gastric tissue – his own stomach acid also played a part, the Independent report said.

The lighter fluid facilitated this though, as it was eating away at the protective layer of mucus that separates the stomach acid from the stomach lining.

While ulcers from foreign bodies are not very common, they can pose a threat if they have the potential to leak fluid into the body, doctors said.

As per the report, the lighter was successfully removed by flexible endoscopy using a polypectomy snare.

Quite why the lighter was ingested is unclear, however the report notes that the man had “a history of foreign body ingestion requiring laparotomy for spoon removal,” the Independent said.