This story might get under your skin.
A man’s hospital visit took a bizarre turn when testing revealed multiple “foreign bodies” lodged in his heart, abdomen, pelvis, bladder and even his penis.
The most disturbing part? Doctors think he put them there himself.
The strange case unfolded at a hospital in China, where the man sought treatment for discomfort while urinating and blood in his pee.
For the most part, he appeared to be in good health. The 35-year-old’s vital signs were stable, and he had no other symptoms or obvious signs of distress.
But doctors noticed something unusual on an imaging test: a shadow-like shape near his heart.
Eager for a closer look, they ordered a contrast-enhanced CT scan. The test delivered a shocking surprise, showing multiple “needle-like metallic foreign bodies” scattered inside him.
Most concerning, perhaps, was a 1.4-inch pin that had pierced the fluid-filled sac surrounding his heart, known as the pericardium.
Just how the needles got there was a mystery. The man, who had a childhood history of intellectual disability, couldn’t explain them, and neither could his father, who served as his legal caregiver.
But there was a clue. Two years earlier, doctors at another hospital had removed two foreign objects from the man’s abdomen.
That history led them to suspect that the man was self-embedding, a form of non-suicidal self-injury in which people deliberately insert foreign objects into their bodies, such as glass, staplers, paper clips and wire.
While rare, the perplexing practice has been documented for decades. One of the earliest known cases dates to 1936, when serial killer Albert Fish was found to have nearly 30 needles embedded in his groin, along with additional needles in his abdomen.
Similar cases were reported in the 1980s, but the behavior gained wider attention in the 2010s, when doctors began reporting more cases involving teenagers who deliberately implanted foreign objects beneath their skin.
Self-embedding can carry serious risks, including infection and tissue and organ damage. There’s also the possibility that the objects could travel to other parts of the body and cause further complications.
The patient in China was already facing a potentially life-threatening one. The needle near his heart posed a serious risk, but removing some of the others could also cause significant damage.
Ultimately, they opted to focus on the most dangerous object first.
Surgeons successfully removed an intact, black metallic sewing needle from the patient’s pericardium, finding that it was corroded — a sign that it had been inside his body for or an extended period of time.
Perhaps even more puzzling, doctors found no obvious entry wound or scar on the man’s chest that would explain how the object had gotten there.
After surgery, the man’s heart function took a nosedive as it grappled with existing injury from the needle, along with the stress from surgery.
The patient was discharged from the hospital nine days after surgery, and at a nine-month follow-up appointment, he was still clinically stable and his heart function had recovered.
As for the other needles scattered around his body, doctors opted to monitor them closely rather than risk complications from immediately removing them.
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