A man who went to the doctor in India complaining of abdominal pain was found to have nearly 12 pounds of metal objects in his stomach.
Maksood Khan, 28, a rickshaw driver from Satna district in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, was admitted to Sanjay Gandhi Hospital on November 19.
Doctors initially believed he was suffering from food poisoning, until tests revealed the contents of his stomach.
“He had been complaining of the pain for the last one month. After the general examination, we found that he had an infection in the abdomen and low blood pressure, he was in a critical condition,” Dr. Priyank Sharma, who led the surgery, told CNN.
They soon discovered that the cause of his pain was far more serious.
“We had suspicions that there was something else because his family had expressed doubts that he was consuming unnatural, abnormal things. So, we did an X-ray and ultrasound of the abdomen,” he added.
The scans revealed the presence of multiple metal objects in his stomach ranging from coins to razor blades.
Khan underwent surgery on November 24 to remove the objects, during which a laparoscope was used to find them all.
“We discovered in his stomach nut bolts, chains, 263 coins and around 100 nails. The surgery took three hours to perform,” Dr. APS Gaharwal, head of the general surgery department, told CNN.
“Post operatively, he was in a critical condition for 24 hours and was on ventilator support. Now he’s out of danger but he will need some time for his stomach to recover,” said Sharma. “There are still two to three coins in his rectum that will pass naturally.”
After looking at post-operative X-rays, surgeons believe everything else has been removed.
A mental health issue
After speaking to Khan’s family, doctors believe his unusual behavior could be caused by depression.
“This is a mental illness. Our psychiatry department also found that he might be in depression,” said Sharma, adding that the man would receive further treatment.
Khan is expected to fully recover without any long-term damage.
In 2016, a 42-year-old man in the northern city of Amritsar in the state of Punjab was operated on after he spent two months swallowing knives. Forty knives were surgically removed from his stomach after doctors spent almost two days forming a diagnosis and surgery plan.
The man was believed to have had a rare mental disorder. The patient told doctors that he had no idea why he started eating knives but that he “developed a taste for metal” and “loved the way blades tasted.”
