This man woke up coughing because he swallowed something you wouldn’t expect

03 Oct, 2015 by Rachel Alexander

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A 55-year old man suffered a seizure in his sleep, and woke up to find a piece of his dentures on the floor. He couldn’t find all of it, but didn’t think much of it until he started having trouble swallowing and coughing a few days later.

The Daily Mail reports,

The symptoms got worse, until they became so bad he went to hospital.

There, doctors carried out X-rays which revealed he had swallowed a major part of the false teeth which had a clasp on it, during the seizure.

The piece of denture was lodged in the man’s oesophagus (food pipe), 32cm down from his mouth.

One edge of the false teeth was lodged into the wall of his oesophagus and was blocking it.

Doctors tried to remove it using an endoscope –a camera that is used to look into the food pipe – and some alligator forceps.

But as it was blocking the wall of the oesophagus, every time they gripped it with the forceps, it slipped away.

Eventually, doctors were able to pull it up to the upper part of the food pipe and it was removed using a ‘rigid oesophagoscopy’ – where a rigid endoscope is used – and operation which carries more complications.

This is apparently a rather common occurrence, and for that reason, doctors often advise patients to get more costly dental implants instead of removable false teeth. People swallowing their dentures account for 11.5 per cent of foreign objects blocking the oesophagus. Fortunately the man recovered — and since he has a history of seizures, let’s hope he invests in a dental implant.