A former policeman told me about a case he dealt with in the late 1970s. A man had got up in the morning, had breakfast, got in his car and drove off to work. Halfway to work he had coughed a large amount of blood onto the windscreen of his car, collapsed over the wheel and died - crashing the car in the process.
He interviewed the man's spouse. They had a cocktail party at home the previous night and had been drinking heavily. At a certain point in the evening her husband had knocked back his drink so energetically that he had swallowed the cocktail pick along with the drink. The people talking to him saw what happened and everybody thought this was extremely funny, including her husband.
The pathologist confirmed that the cocktail pick had worked its way through the lining of his oesophagus and had eventually reached his heart.
ownagefool 41 minutes ago [-]
I swallowed a shirt pin as a child. Went to hospital, x-rays, etc. Originally the set me nil by mouth and were set to operate, but the consultant overruled and luckily it passed naturally. (:
lifestyleguru 3 hours ago [-]
Yeah don't swallow things which cannot be digested. I have one anecdotal story of a person swallowing dried bay leaf which then got stuck "at the exit".
sph 53 minutes ago [-]
> Yeah don't swallow things which cannot be digested.
Wow .. I had no idea. I'd always assumed you were supposed to remove them from cooking because they would taste bad if eaten directly - not that you couldn't actually digest them!
OneDeuxTriSeiGo 13 minutes ago [-]
Yeah a lot of different leaves don't break down well in the digestive track without friction or longer digestion periods (which are adaptations that actual herbivores have).
This is also why they (bay leaves or more generally all laurel leaves) are such a massive pain in the ass to compost in most places.
The wonders of insoluble fiber and wax coatings on leaves.
hshdhdhehd 2 hours ago [-]
Except for dietary fibre :)
jonathanlydall 2 hours ago [-]
These days I look somewhat disdainfully upon heavy drinkers, not only do they often disturb others when drinking (being noisy, obtrusive, drunk driving, etc.), but even ignoring long term health effects, I'm in my 40s now and it's definitely a factor too, but for at least a day after even very moderate drinking I know my mental faculties are reduced, so I can only imagine how much theirs are.
I very rarely have alcohol these days, it's just not worth the feeling of fatigue and brain fogginess the next day that's pretty much guaranteed for me afterwards, even from just 2 beers.
I suspect it's not unique to South Africa, but there is a somewhat pervasive culture here of excessive drinking. Back when I lived in a complex, I would often see people pitch up in the common area at midday with a cooler box full of beer, and basically sit there for the next 6 hours just drinking, what a waste of a day in my view. And most people don't even raise an eyebrow when someone casually mentions in the workplace this is how they spent their weekend. That the police here are both incompetent and readily bribe-able also makes the effects of excessive drinking particularly pronounced, like traffic lights being regularly knocked over.
naldb 8 minutes ago [-]
Spending all day drinking and socialising is a waste of a day? As opposed to what, working? Or maybe watching Netflix at home?
potato3732842 1 hours ago [-]
I barely drink anymore at my age but I don't look down on other people for doing so. It's their time and their body who am I to tell them what to do with it?
ljm 1 hours ago [-]
As soon as a hangover shifted from an acute headache to a day or more of drowsiness I started to substantially limit the amount I drink. You can't tackle that with paracetamol or caffeine and it's not worth it any more, and that's just from what would consider casual drinking (a few pints at the pub) in the UK.
I can't imagine how badly drunk you have to get to swallow something like a toothpick without knowing.
fragmede 41 minutes ago [-]
for better or worse, a combo of cheers and zbiotics actually seems to work to reduce hangovers
doctorhandshake 2 hours ago [-]
A good example of one of my favorite diagnostic axioms, Hickam’s dictum:
Hickam's dictum is a medical principle that a patient's symptoms could be caused by several diseases. It is a counterargument to misapplying Occam's razor in the medical profession. A common version of Hickam's dictum states: "A man can have as many diseases as he damn well pleases."
Save you the handful of minutes of skimming: He swallowed a toothpick. "Medical mystery" my foot.
Aldipower 2 hours ago [-]
"They also looked at his medical history, which was relatively short. He was born in Central America, but he had lived in the US for 16 years."
Interesting constellation of sentences. So, the most important thing in a medical history seems to be where you've been born. Is Central America or the US better/worse for your health I wonder? That is not going to be clear here.
dahcryn 9 minutes ago [-]
your geographical whereabouts are part of your medical history yes, that's important. Far from the most important thing, but definitely important in case of diagnosing weird stuff
nervousvarun 28 minutes ago [-]
Or...it could be as simple as his being born in Central America and this taking place in the U.S. means they didn't have access to his earlier health records.
kakacik 2 hours ago [-]
Certain groups of people have certain genetic predispositions. Ie when pregnant there is calculation of down syndrome probability, they take your origin into account. We had something like 1:4000 IIRC, my french teacher who comes from Algeria had 1:200 with his wife.
Alcohol tolerance is another (native south americans have lower, as do some asian populations). Over time, env effects also creep up in the genome (ie altitude acclimatization for sherpas).
But could be also societal, level of healthcare, level and types of vaccines received and so on.
d--b 2 hours ago [-]
"This one seems ready-made for a television medical drama"
Yep! In fact there was an episode of House MD where the patient had ingested a toothpick and had all sort of symptoms like these.
konart 50 minutes ago [-]
>A mild, dull pain had developed in the patient's right lower abdomen and back. Nine days later, a fever and body aches also developed. The next day, he went to urgent care, where clinicians gave him intravenous fluids and an intravenous pain reliever.
Seriously? All this and you just get some painkillers?
SanjayMehta 3 hours ago [-]
House, MD had an episode with the same scenario.
Also, Sherwood Anderson in real life.
e40 3 hours ago [-]
If the show was still on the air, tbhe writers would have definitely ised this.
lwansbrough 3 hours ago [-]
Vibe based debugging. Very impressive.
I’m surprised wood doesn’t show up more clearly on imaging though.
Rendered at 11:30:22 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
He interviewed the man's spouse. They had a cocktail party at home the previous night and had been drinking heavily. At a certain point in the evening her husband had knocked back his drink so energetically that he had swallowed the cocktail pick along with the drink. The people talking to him saw what happened and everybody thought this was extremely funny, including her husband.
The pathologist confirmed that the cocktail pick had worked its way through the lining of his oesophagus and had eventually reached his heart.
This gentleman would have disagreed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Lotito
Quote: "His digestive system allowed him to consume up to 900 g (2.0 lb) of metal per day."
This is also why they (bay leaves or more generally all laurel leaves) are such a massive pain in the ass to compost in most places.
The wonders of insoluble fiber and wax coatings on leaves.
I very rarely have alcohol these days, it's just not worth the feeling of fatigue and brain fogginess the next day that's pretty much guaranteed for me afterwards, even from just 2 beers.
I suspect it's not unique to South Africa, but there is a somewhat pervasive culture here of excessive drinking. Back when I lived in a complex, I would often see people pitch up in the common area at midday with a cooler box full of beer, and basically sit there for the next 6 hours just drinking, what a waste of a day in my view. And most people don't even raise an eyebrow when someone casually mentions in the workplace this is how they spent their weekend. That the police here are both incompetent and readily bribe-able also makes the effects of excessive drinking particularly pronounced, like traffic lights being regularly knocked over.
I can't imagine how badly drunk you have to get to swallow something like a toothpick without knowing.
Hickam's dictum is a medical principle that a patient's symptoms could be caused by several diseases. It is a counterargument to misapplying Occam's razor in the medical profession. A common version of Hickam's dictum states: "A man can have as many diseases as he damn well pleases."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hickam%27s_dictum
Interesting constellation of sentences. So, the most important thing in a medical history seems to be where you've been born. Is Central America or the US better/worse for your health I wonder? That is not going to be clear here.
Alcohol tolerance is another (native south americans have lower, as do some asian populations). Over time, env effects also creep up in the genome (ie altitude acclimatization for sherpas).
But could be also societal, level of healthcare, level and types of vaccines received and so on.
Yep! In fact there was an episode of House MD where the patient had ingested a toothpick and had all sort of symptoms like these.
Seriously? All this and you just get some painkillers?
Also, Sherwood Anderson in real life.
I’m surprised wood doesn’t show up more clearly on imaging though.