A baffled OAP with a mystery sore throat had accidentally swallowed his denture.
The 74-year-old turned up at A&E complaining of shortness of breath.
He also had a sore throat.
Medics thought the symptoms could be an indication of lung disease.
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But as he worsened over the following three days, doctors ordered him to undergo a CT scan, at the hospital in San Antonio, Texas, US.
The scan revealed a ‘foreign body’ in his upper oesophagus that had been missed on earlier radiographs of his chest.
After further examination of his voice box, docs found it was in fact his denture with a metal wire.
An attempt to extract the teeth using a flexible endoscopy proved fruitless.
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Surgeons then performed a rigid endoscopy to remove the lodged denture.
The man recalled he had fallen asleep wearing his dentures, which were all in place.
But he was also using an airway pressure machine to help relieve ‘severe obstructive sleep apnea’ reports What’s The Jam.
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Following surgery, he was given antibiotics and made an ‘uneventful’ recovery.
According to medical journals, dentures are second to fish and animal bones as the foreign body most commonly ingested.
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