NI woman had plastic pill packet lodged in her throat for 17 days

The patient, who is in her 40s and has not been named, swallowed the packet of the painkiller Tramadol in the middle of the night last November.

It was finally detected after four visits to Craigavon Area Hospital in Co Armagh, and the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast.

She first went to the Emergency Department the following morning complaining of discomfort and difficulty swallowing.

There she was described as “fit and well”, and the ears, nose and throat team observed she was tolerating fluids, had no airway difficulties and could mobilise her neck, according to a report in the BMJ Journals.

The pill packet did not show up in X-rays and was not detected at this stage.

Doctors told her to come back if there was no improvement.

The woman was back in hospital three days later.

She was treated with steroids and painkillers for 48 hours until her symptoms improved and was then discharged.

Five days later, a barium swallow scan was carried out at a hospital, but returned normal results.

It was during a later outpatients appointment that the pill packet was detected during an oesophago-gastroduodenoscopy (OGD) scan.

It was safely removed some 17 days after ingestion.

The patient was quoted as saying: “I had no idea I swallowed this.

“It was a very frightening three weeks and I couldn’t believe when I saw the picture.”

David McCrory wrote about the extraordinary case for BMJ Journals.

“She had swallowed her Tramadol tablets whole in the original foil packet which was lodged in the upper oesophagus,” he wrote.

“She underwent rigid oesophagoscopy and removal of foreign body uneventfully (17 days after ingestion of her tablets) and she was discharged after a period of observation.”