Buttons, nut bolts: Doctors treat stomach-turned hardware store as patient falls ill

A man in Punjab reportedly injected a number of hardware objects ranging from nut bolts, buttons, chains and other inedible things before complaining about terminal stomach pain, which unravelled the real mystery after the doctors ran medical checkups. 

“On carrying out an X-ray, we found lockets, chains, nuts, bolts, earphones, and many other objects inside the stomach,” said Ajmer Singh Kalra, director of the Moga Medicity Hospital in Moga, Punjab.

The patient sought the doctor’s assistance where he reported stomach troubles and terminal pain alongside sustaining a high fever.

After going through medical checkups and examinations, experts discovered that the stomach was turned into a hardware store.

The report suggested that the 35-year-old had reportedly consumed roughly 60 gewgaws, including lockets, chains, nuts, bolts, earphones, safety pins, magnets, shirt buttons, zips, and many more inedible objects.

The Cleveland Clinic noted that doctors diagnosed the trinket taster with pica, a mental health condition where the sufferer compulsively swallows items that aren’t food.

This thing is very common in young children pregnant women and people with mental disorders, including especially autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disabilities or schizophrenia.

The report indicated that the patient’s relatives were unaware of the problem.

It proved harmful after eating indigestible things.

“Since he had eaten sharp objects, there were severe wounds in his stomach,” said Kalra, who “decided to operate on him.”

The victim underwent a three-hour surgery, presided over by surgeon Anup Handa and gastroenterologist Dr Vishavnoor Kalra, which came out as a success. However, his condition is still critical.

“He is still on a ventilator and is critical,” said Kalra.

In an equally peculiar case of pica detailed in July, a London woman spent over $3,800 to sate her clay craving, which began when she became pregnant with her son in 2013.