The coin
The very curious story has been told of of a 59-year-old Russian man who left everyone surprised in the Russian city of Zelenograd.
For over 50 years, the 59-year-old suffered serious nose breathing difficulties because of a coin he had shoved up his nose as a child and forgot about over the years.
He had been completely unable to breathe through his right nostril for several months hence why he decided to report to a hospital.
The foreign object was recently discovered by doctors at the Konchalovsky City Clinical Hospital in Zelenograd when a CT scan was done on him.
The scan showed that the right nasal passage was completely blocked by a foreign body of stony density stuck in the posterior, close to the nasopharynx. A more common curvature of the septum was also observed but it would not have obstructed the nasal passage completely all by itself.
Doctors were not expecting the discovery as the patient had never mentioned shoving any foreign object up his nostril but the truth is, he had no idea about it himself.
It was not until the CT scan showed the foreign object that he recalled playing with a small, one-kopeck coin, and shoving it into his nose, when he was about six years old.
He never mentioned to his mother that the coin got stuck in his right nostril because she was very strict. He left it there and forgot all about it.
Doctors doubted his story but after removing the coin during an endoscopic operation which lasted 1.5 hours and examining it, they started to believe him.
The rhinolith – nasal stone that usually forms around foreign objects – on the metal coin indicated that the object had been in the man’s nose for quite some time, and half a century didn’t seem that unlikely anymore.
During the procedure to remove the coin, doctors also fixed his deviated septum, which improved his nasal breathing even more. However, ENT specialist Elena Nepryakhina told the Moscow Press Agency that the man was so sick of having his nose blocked that he yanked out the bandages soon after waking up from the anesthesia.
Doctors said that the man was lucky to regain full nasal breathing capacity and avoid serious complications caused by foreign objects for so long. In such cases, various intracranial and purulent-septic complications may occur, but the 59-year-old didn’t experience anything but breathing difficulties.
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Source: The Guardian
