Docs remove elusive fish bone after 3 weeks woman goes under scalpel after a sharp needle-like object juts out of her neck

Docs remove elusive fish bone after 3 weeks

woman goes under scalpel after a sharp needle-like object juts out of her neck

When a 35-year-old woman from Andheri had fish, she had not imagined that a stuck fish bone would give her three weeks of pain. Last Wednesday, doctors operated on her to remove the 1.5-cm-long fish bone and said this was a rare case as fish bone hardly migrates to neck region from oral cavity. Anuradha Saha was brought to KEM Hospital after she complained of pain in the throat. The CT scan and esophagoscopy failed to trace the fish bone. It was only after the fish bone made its way from the oral cavity to the neck and almost pierced through it that the doctors could trace it and operate on her. “When she came to us, we could see a swelling inside her throat. She was bleeding from her mouth and initially went to a private hospital which referred her here,” said Dr Neelam Sathe, associate professor, KEM Hospital. “We kept her on rice tube for two days, gave her medicines and sent her home. The bleeding stopped but the pain stayed,” said Dr Sathe. After a week, Saha returned still complaining of pain in her throat. “This time, we did a CT scan but even that failed to trace the fish bone. We changed the medicines and sent her home,” added Dr Sathe. Three weeks later, the woman felt a sharp needle-like object jutting out slightly on the left side of her neck. “We could feel a needle-point mark on her neck. It was the same fish bone that our investigations failed to locate,” added Dr Sathe. After a half-an-hour operation, the fish bone was removed from Saha’s neck. “Luckily, the bone didn’t pierce any blood vessels or nerves in the neck. So, we took it out easily with a pair of pincers. It could have been life threatening had the bone gone into the blood vessel or had diverted to the chest,” said Dr Sathe. She added that one should not swallow rice or raw banana to force down stuck fish bones. Instead, one should seek medical help. “Saha didn’t attempt any of the home remedies as she was bleeding from the mouth and got scared,” said Dr Sathe. Saha is now back home and recuperating. Doctors of the ENT department doctors at KEM Hospital are busy documenting her case which they plan to send it to medical journals.