Having cooked some fish that her grandson caught and brought home, a 59-year-old woman suddenly sensed that something was stuck in her throat after taking a big bite of the fish. Swallowing several mouthfuls of rice and drinking several swigs of water did not help and the pain in her throat gradually got worse. She put her fingers down her throat and unexpectedly pulled out a piece of nylon string. After being rushed to the emergency room, an X-ray showed a hook-shaped object in her throat.
Liu Ching-feng, a doctor in otolaryngology department at Greater Tainan’s Chimei Medical Center, says that an endoscopy of the woman’s throat showed a silver fishhook approximately 3cm long lodged in her upper throat with a nylon fishing line several centimeters long attached to it. The spot where the hook was stuck was fairly deep. The doctor carefully removed it using a fishbone remover. The fishhook and fishing line combined were between 12cm and 13cm long.
Liu says that generally people accidentally swallow fish bones when eating fish but rarely swallow fishhooks. Half of the hook that the woman swallowed was stuck in mucous membrane, Liu says, adding that when it was removed some streaks of blood could be seen. The hook was quite sharp and if it had been forcibly swallowed it could have damaged the esophagus, trachea and even the aorta, Liu says.
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsun, Liberty Times
照片:自由時報記者蔡宗勳
If foreign objects such as fish bones or other bones get stuck in your throat while eating you should never try to swallow rice or steamed buns to dislodge the object because it could push the object farther down and cause further damage, Liu says. The best thing to do according to Liu is to stop eating and go directly to a hospital or otolaryngologist to let a doctor remove the object.
Self-induced vomiting is the wrong way to remove a foreign object stuck in your throat, Liu says, because it can make a wound caused by the fishbone or other bones even bigger. The popular folk remedy of drinking vinegar to dissolve a fishbone is also wrong, Liu says, adding that strong acid is the only way to dissolve fish bones. If vinegar could actually be used to dissolve fish bones, the acid would also severely corrode the throat as well, Liu says. At hospitals it is quite common to see patients with fish bones stuck in their throats who have drunk vinegar, but while the bone is not dissolved it instead burns the mucous membrane in the throat, Liu says.
(Liberty Times, Translated by Kyle Jeffcoat)
一名五十九歲婦人烹煮孫子釣回來的魚,大口吞食之際,突然覺得卡住,吞了幾口飯,也喝了幾口水,但都沒有改善,且喉嚨愈來愈痛,她伸指入喉竟然拉到一條尼龍線,急忙到醫院急診求助,照X光發現鉤狀異物。
台南奇美醫院耳鼻喉部醫師劉璟鋒以喉部內視鏡檢查,發現婦人上喉部卡住一支銀色約三公分的魚鉤且連帶著好幾公分長的尼龍線,卡住的部位有點深,小心翼翼用「魚刺夾」才夾出,連魚鉤線在內,總長度約十二至十三公分。
劉璟鋒指出,一般吃魚都是不小心吞入魚刺,罕見魚鉤鯁喉,婦人吞入的魚鉤一半插入黏膜,夾出來時還帶些血絲,魚鉤極為銳利,若強行吞入,恐傷及食道、氣管甚至大動脈。
劉璟鋒表示,進食時被魚刺、骨頭或其他的異物卡住,千萬不要嘗試吞飯、吞饅頭,以免異物被推進更深的位置,造成更大傷害。最好是先停止進食,馬上到醫院或耳鼻喉科診所就醫,由醫師將異物夾出。
劉璟鋒說,異物卡喉催吐也是錯誤方式,這可能會讓魚刺、骨頭刺傷的傷口擴大;民間流傳「喝醋可以溶化魚刺」的方法也不正確。唯有強酸才能分解骨質,若吞醋可以溶化魚刺,喉嚨恐怕也會嚴重酸蝕。在醫院常見魚刺鯁喉的患者喝醋,魚刺沒被化掉,反而造成咽喉黏膜廣泛性灼傷。
(自由時報記者孟慶慈)
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