A 35-year-old man’s visit to a hospital in China took a strange turn after doctors discovered several metal objects inside different parts of his body.
The man went to the hospital after experiencing discomfort while urinating and noticing blood in his urine.
Apart from those problems, he appeared to be in good health. His vital signs were stable and doctors noticed no other major symptoms.
However, an imaging test showed a strange shadow near his heart.
Doctors decided to carry out a contrast-enhanced CT scan to get a clearer picture.
The results revealed several “needle-like metallic foreign bodies” inside his heart area, abdomen, pelvis, bladder and penis.
One of the biggest concerns was a 1.4-inch pin that had pierced the pericardium, the sac surrounding the heart.
Doctors initially did not know how the objects got inside his body.
The man could not explain how they got there, and his father, who is his legal caregiver, also had no explanation.
Doctors later discovered that two years earlier, another hospital had removed two foreign objects from the man’s abdomen.
This led doctors to suspect that he may have inserted the objects himself.
The needle close to his heart was considered particularly dangerous and potentially life-threatening.
Doctors decided to remove that object first rather than attempt to remove all the others at once.
During surgery, they successfully removed a black metal sewing needle from the man’s pericardium.
The needle was already corroded, suggesting that it had been inside his body for a long time.
Doctors also found no clear wound or scar on his chest showing how the needle entered his body.
After the operation, the man’s heart function became worse due to the existing injury and stress from the surgery.
His condition later improved, and he was discharged from the hospital nine days after the operation.
Nine months later, doctors said he remained stable and his heart function had recovered.
The other metal objects remain inside his body.
Doctors decided to closely monitor them instead of immediately removing them because another operation could cause further complications.
