A team of surgeons in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh pulled out eight spoons, two screwdrivers, toothbrushes, a kitchen knife and a door latch from a man’s stomach on Saturday.
The metallic objects were discovered in Karan Sen’s body when he was rushed to a local clinic near Mandi district after he complained of acute pain in his abdomen.
The doctor at the clinic immediately referred him to the Lal Bahadur Shastri Government Medical College, after he noticed a strange bulge in the 35-year-old’s stomach.
Dr Nikhil Soni, a member of the team of doctors who operated upon Mr Sen told news agency ANI, that it took nearly four hours for the team of surgeons at the hospital to remove the foreign objects from the patient’s stomach.
He added that the patient was suffering from a mental illness, but did not reveal the details of the ailment.
Meanwhile, a similar case was reported at the Corporate Hospital in Amritsar in the northern state of Punjab nearly three years ago when a police officer was admitted with severe stomach pains.
Upon inspection, the doctors discovered that 40 pocket knives, were sitting in the 42-year-old cop’s stomach, some of which had caused major internal bleeding.
Dr Mahajan, a surgeon at the said hospital who doesn’t wish to disclose his first name, told SBS Punjabi that the police officer later admitted to swallowing the sharp objects on ‘impulse.’
“Although a proper diagnosis, in this case, was not made, such a pattern is often found in people suffering from an eating disorder called, Pica,” said Dr Mahajan.
According to the US-based non-profit organisation, the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), there are no laboratory tests for Pica. Instead, the diagnosis is made from a clinical history of the patient.
“It is a psychological disorder which typically is characterised with people swallowing items which are not nutritional for instance knives, glass, or most commonly mud or hair,” Dr Mahajan added.
