"I'm in terrible pain," there's a live eel in my intestine: the (almost) unique case in the world
A 55-year-old fisherman in Bangladesh went to the hospital with "severe abdominal pain and symptoms of peritonitis." His case, however, ended up in the pages of the International Journal of Surgery Case Reports. The problems were caused by an eel that had slipped under the fisherman's clothing and, entering through the rectum, reached his intestines. The patient confessed to waiting 24 hours before going to the hospital, hoping the "guest" would "go away on its own." "Foreign body ingestion or insertion is not uncommon, particularly in populations engaged in certain occupations or recreational activities," the doctors who wrote the article on the case noted. "However, intestinal penetration by a live animal, in this case a fish, is a rare and poorly documented event."
An abdominal X-ray revealed the presence of gas and, of course, the eel. There is only one other documented case, which occurred in 2004 in Hong Kong. In that case, however, a man had deliberately inserted the animal into his anus "in an attempt to relieve constipation." The Bangladeshi patient risked peritonitis and pneumoperitoneum—due to the air accumulated in his abdomen—with the potential for intestinal wall rupture and serious infection. Surgery was required to remove the eel, which was 65 centimeters long and still alive. "The mechanism by which the eel in our case crossed the anal canal and perforated the colon raises interesting questions about the anatomy and behavior of both the fish and the human gastrointestinal tract," the doctors report.
The fisherman recovered relatively quickly. He was discharged after four days of hospitalization without further pain or complications. Doctors released him with two recommendations. First, avoid similar episodes again. Second, go to the hospital immediately in case of a repeat, without waiting 24 hours.
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(Adnkronos)
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