Anatomy Expert Reveals the ‘Strange Things’ People Lost Inside Their Bodies

It’s not uncommon for doctors to have to remove numerous bizarre objects from unsuspecting places in the human body.

One such strange foreign body found recently was an entire housefly that was discovered inside a 63-year-old patient’s colon during a colonoscopy, a recent case report in the American Journal of Gastroenterology revealed.

The doctors were confused as to how the fly got inside and from which end of the digestive system it entered the patient’s body, as the patient had only eaten a liquid diet the day prior to the procedure.

Other examples of strange objects being removed from the body have slightly less of a mystery as to how the object got inside, however.

“I have a collection of (accidentally or voluntarily) ingested foreign bodies that includes fishbones, meat bones, pins, safety pins, razor blades, glass, knives, forks, spoons, lighters, buttons, batteries, toothpicks, dentistry, drugs swallowed with package…and so many others,” Xavier Dray, a professor of medicine at Sorbonne University’s Hôpital Saint-Antoine in Paris who was not involved in the study, told Newsweek.

“Inserted foreign body (like bodypacks) or accidentally lost sex toys (or anything used as a sex toy…) are very different. Surgeons sometimes collect them as trophies.”

Rectally

Countless items have been retrieved from patients’ rectums, ranging from TV remotes to billiard balls.

“While the reasons are diverse, they are surpassed by the variety of objects found at this end, including apples, aubergine, brush, pens, carrots, pesticide containers, deodorant can (which represents a fire hazard during surgical removal), drinking glass, fizzy drinks bottles, baseball and probably most eye-watering is a whole coconut,” Adam Taylor, the director of the Clinical Anatomy Learning Centre at Lancaster University, wrote in an essay for The Conversation.

“As a professor of anatomy, I come across many such stories of strange things found inside people—foreign bodies, we call them.”

In a case report from the 1970s, one man achieved the “longest standing, most traveled foreign body introduced into the rectum yet reported” after traveling around the world with a plastic vibrator inside his rectum for 6 months.

These objects can be very dangerous if they can’t be passed naturally, as they may block the movement of food waste out of the body and cause a traffic jam of feces in the intestines. This may cause the intestines to stretch over time, possibly risking the bowels tearing.

“There are many reasons people put foreign objects up their anus, ranging from the more common erotic reasons to the less common constipation relief,” Taylor explained.

These will often have to be removed by surgeons, by going in via the anus and pulling the object out, or in more severe cases, by surgically opening up the patient’s bowels.

“Between 66 percent and 85 percent of those attending A&E with this complaint are men,” Taylor said.

Genitals

Similarly, people have sheepishly gone to the emergency room after being unable to retrieve objects from within their genitals.

“Typical vaginal foreign bodies include pessaries or damaged intrauterine contraceptive devices that the patient may forget or not realize are broken,” Taylor explains.

Items found in vaginas also include tampons, sex toys, or household objects including batteries, paper clips, shampoo bottles and aluminum foil, according to a TikTok posted by urologist Joshua R Gonzalez.

These can risk infection or even fistula formation.

People also may stick items up the urethra of the penis, with objects including tweezers, darts, nails, toothbrushes, knitting needles, chopsticks and toothpicks, another video by Gonzalez reveals.

Inhalation

Often, small objects can be accidentally inhaled, often by children, as kids are known to place items in their mouths and noses. If these items become wedged in the airway, this can cause asphyxiation, but if the object does not cause a blockage, it can remain in the body for a long time.

A 7-year-old girl in Paraguay was recently discovered to have a toothpaste cap hidden inside her lung, with numerous other bizarre stories of items staying inside the respiratory system undetected for years.

“A postman from Preston, England, inhaled a Playmobil road cone as a child, but it was only discovered when the 47-year-old had his lungs scanned when he presented with a persistent cough,” Taylor said. “While not 40 years in the finding, a man inhaled a pea, which was in place long enough for it to begin to sprout in his respiratory tract.”

Inhaling foreign bodies is one of the most common causes of death in children under three. Some of the most commonly inhaled objects include small items like coins, toys or magnets, as well as peanuts and even hot dogs.

Swallowed items

Foreign-body ingestions in children have nearly doubled since the 1990s, rising from 9.5 per 10,000 children under age 6 to 18 per 10,000, according to a 2019 study in the journal Pediatrics.

These also include small objects, including fruit, toys, coins, and even needles.

“Magnets pose a greater risk when more than one has been consumed because they can attract each other through the loops of the bowel wall, causing tears in the bowel,” Taylor said. “Ingestion of metallic objects that become lodged, without symptoms, can pose a future risk if they contain ferrous metals, making them magnetic. If the person has an MRI scan, they can become dislodged or heat up, causing damage.”

Ears

Occasionally, people may insert items into their ears that they can’t remove, such as cotton buds, seeds, and tiny toys.

Sometimes, creepy crawlies can make their way into our ears, such as one tiny spider that recently shed its skin inside the ear of a woman in Taiwan.

“One unfortunate British postman had an unpleasant result of swallowing a spider, which bit him causing his throat to swell and impair breathing,” Taylor said.

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