A Chinese man carried a hidden secret inside his body for nearly two decades — quite literally.
The 32-year-old, who had swallowed a thermometer at age 12, never told anyone. The object stayed in his abdomen undetected until persistent stomach pain finally drove him to see a doctor, where an X-ray exposed the long, thin foreign body still lodged inside him.
Physicians who treated the man said the thermometer had been there for roughly 20 years, an unusually prolonged period. Most swallowed objects are caught early because they trigger immediate and noticeable symptoms, making this case a medical rarity.
The South China Morning Post reported that the patient admitted to doctors he had deliberately kept the incident from his family after the accident happened during his childhood.
Surgeons removed the object through a procedure described as successful. The man is currently recovering.
Medical professionals note that swallowed foreign objects carry serious risks — among them internal injury and infection — even when no obvious symptoms present themselves for extended periods. The absence of pain or discomfort, as apparently experienced by this patient for years, does not indicate the object is harmless.
Doctors have since cautioned that any suspected case of foreign object ingestion requires prompt medical evaluation to head off complications that may not be visible from the outside.
