Foreign Objects in Body Cavities

[SWFlorida]

This is how they present in triage. You note that they appear anxious, possibly in a bit of pain, sometimes they are very matter of fact. We've all seen em. Retained foreign object in various body cavities. Kids with beans up their noses, beads in their ear canal, men with various household products in their rectum, women with various toys gone horribly bad.

With the adults you try really hard to look concerned and serious. This is a delicate subject and boy do they watch your face for even the slightest hint of a laugh. Now I'm not talking about assaults, that can be awful. I'm talking of grown adults that really should know better. A spray can just does not belong up ones bum.

How do you handle this? How do you write the complaint on the chart? Do you send the object to pathology as you would any other material? What do you put in the discharge instructions?

[shrek]

OMG!!! Those are the worst stories!!! I've never seen a roach in my life and I think I'd sh*# myself on the spot if I did! Now, if one ever was on my body anywhere....we'll let's just say you'd probably have to code me because I would almost definately have a massive MI! LOL

I saw two roaches just before I was ready to order some dinner...needless to I changed my mind

[old rural nurse, RN]

When I worked on the surgical floor, we had a young (20?) man who had a pair of INDUSTRIAL sized cooking tongs inserted you know where. The funniest part were the pictures they took in ER prior to removing it!!!

[CEN35]

I have seen alot! Shampoo bottles, golf balls, glasses, bottles, bat grips, marbles, etc etc...........

you just never know!

out........

[Havin' A Party!, ASN, RN]

There was so much swelling... they actually had to use lidocaine and make a small incision on the dog to get the blood to drain...

Surely these are the dog days of summer.

[zambezi, BSN, RN]

You just have to ask yourself, "At what point did this seem like a good idea?"??? LOL

I think that this pretty much sums it up for me....always makes you wonder what people are thinking--or not thinking... :chuckle

The human body is pretty amazing to be able to fit these large objects into seeming not so large areas...amazing what a body can accomodate!

We had a guy that was running from the cops--drug bust...let me tell you that it is a bad idea to swallow or insert meth that is packaged in nothing but a sandwich baggie into any orifice...should the packaging break--you will have a large intake of meth and probably die (as this gentleman showed us...)I'm pretty sure that it wasn't the high he was looking for...

[llgRN]

Doing clinicals in Chicago area..... middle aged man with FB (pear) in rectum...required surgery and antibiotic therapy.......oh yeah forget to tell you that his "friend" tried to "cut" the pear out with a paring knife.....

[teeituptom, BSN, RN]

I have seen alot! Shampoo bottles, golf balls, glasses, bottles, bat grips, marbles, etc etc...........

you just never know!

out........

I wonder if my golf ball retriever would work

enquiring minds want to know

[EmergencyDpt]

We had a fourteen year old boy with his mother's vibrator in him in the "on" position. You could feel it through his stomach and definatily auscultate it "BZZZZZZZZ" I don't know who was more embarrased, him or his mother. I look at it as a normal part of sexual experimentation. The abnormal part is letting go of the damned thing...

[skislalom]

let me tell you, it's no better there either.

We do strip searches to prevent contraband from entering the facility...

Had one gal...had 4 packs of cigarettes stuffed into her lady parts

I've confiscated...lighters, balloons and latex gloves full of dope (pot, meth, heroin..even tobacco, matches and strikers)...many of these items are found in the rectums of incoming male inmates as well.

I had one gal that rattled ... she had a large Rx bottle of Vicodin, Flexeril and literally rattled..LOL

Hmmm...would you believe a hype kit (spoon, matches, heroin...OH and of course syringes)

Shanks, small handguns and money are also known to be found, but only shanks were found at our facility.

I was training a new officer and when she had the inmate bend over and cough...she comes out and says...Ummm, is she supposed to have that bic lighter in there?... Ummmm NO...have her take it out and drycell her.

These stories are incredible...keep em coming.

~T

[TaraER-RN]

My very first patient ever in the ER was a 20 something year old guy, who the week prior was in the ER because he couldn't urinate...they put a foley in, and what do ya know it worked. They ended up D/Cing the foley, he urinated on his own before leaving and was discharged. Well a week later he couldn't urinate again...but didn't want to come to the ER again...so he decided he would take tubing from a tropical fish tank and catherterize himself! Well, you guessed it, it got stuck and he had to come in, with approx 4 inches of the tubing sticking out, had to have a suprapubic cath for a while! ouch!

[Dixielee, BSN, RN]

Not a shift goes by that I don't shake my head and just say..."Wow" at something stupid someone did to themselves. But if it were not for the stupid, ER nurses would be unemployed. My first real ER experience with the wierd was a young man who was brought in by his friends after he had inserted his member and testicles thru a large, but not large enough, solid brass ring. Of course he was swollen and blue by the time he got to us. He lived in Birmingham and they brought him all the way to Atlanta so no one he knew might be there! It took some fancy cutting by the urologist to get that thing off. I have also seen pears, actually 2 pears in one guys rectum. It was an accident, you see, he was mopping the kitchen in the nude and slipped on the soapy floor and landed in the fruit bowl! That was his story and he was sticking to it. I have also seen large vibrators, squash and cucumbers, summer sausage, one of the large glass Coke bottles they use to have, a glass thermometer in the member (then in the bladder). I have seen rocks and beans in kids noses and ears. We also had a 60ish year old man who was at work, and got his member stuck in the end of a large Craftsmen wrench. Now you gotta wonder something....were these guys bored at work or what? "Hey dude, bet you can't fit your member thru this hole". "Bet I can, ya wanna see?" "Well, sure, try it". "Well, I''ll be darned if you didn't get it in!, hey everybody look a Sam here with the 20 # wrench hanging off his thing"...."hey dude, how ya gonna get it off now?" It did take the fire department with a special cutting torch to get the thing off. I wonder if Craftsman honored their lifetime guarentee not to break on that one?

I also saw a man with a pref bowel who was trying to show his wife that anal sex would not hurt. He put a toilet plunger on the floor in the bathroom, lubed himself up and squatted on the wooden end of the plunger. You guessed it, the plunger slipped, and rammed it's way up the colon till it found a bend, and voila, emergency surgery! Guess his wife was not convinced!

Oh well, just another day in paradise!:rotfl:

[stevierae]

Regarding vibrators and other sex toys inserted rectally that end up in the colon---I always consider that a teaching opportunity, or at least a referral opportunity.

I worked in San Francisco, and I will never forget seeing a very, very scared young man being readied for surgery to remove a vibrator from his colon. He asked the surgeon, actually; he asked the very pompous surgical RESIDENT, very earnestly, "Can you tell me what to do to avoid this happening again?"

Rather than taking a moment to draw an anatomical diagram or to explain how and why the problem occurred, the resident very condescendingly replied, "Yeah. Don't stick vibrators up your a**."

I was appalled, and later told him how inappropriate he was; he admitted it. I told the patient about a very sophisticated San Francisco sex toys store called Good Vibrations, which actually offers mini-classes on the SAFE use of sex toys, and suggested he sit in on one of these classes before "next time." There must be such sophisticated sex toy stores in every major city that offer a similar service, and even in some smaller communities. I know there is a similar store here in Portland. Next time I take an operating room assignement in san Francisco, I intend to sit in on one of those Good Vibrations classes myself, so that I can feel comfortable teaching.

All that said, I remember many years ago being called in early Christmas morning to remove a foreign body that had been inserted that the ER staff couldn't get out safely. They didn't elaborate on what it was. We were going to start with an anoscopy under anesthesia. The surgeon was grouching about how he didn't even get to tell his wife and kids "Merry Christmas," and he was sure they were going to open presents without him.

We got the guy in the "jackknife" position, inserted a lighted anoscope, and all gather 'round for a look-see. There, big as life, was a red GLASS Christmas tree ornament that said in glitter "Merry Christmas!" We all cracked up, and the anesthesiologist snorted and said to the surgeon, "THERE'S your Merry Christmas, a**hole!"

Then, one time I remember taking a supersize cucumber out of a guy's colon. The elderly, grouchy circulator (all of 48; younger than I am now!!) said, "Whaddaya want me to do with this thing? Put it in formalin or VINEGAR?" :rotfl:

OH! Then there was the sweet, elderly gentleman who got his member stuck in a vacuum cleaner hose--this was 30 years ago, when hoses were metal. Ouch! We all fondly (not to his face!) referred to him as "Mr. Hoover."