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Dr. Andrew Rynne
MD
Dr. Andrew Rynne

Family Physician

Exp 50 years

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Is There Any Harm If I Accidentally Swallowed Some Plastic Pieces?

I ate bread sticks from a resturant and my teeth hurt and found about 6 peices of hard plastic fork or something in it. I am afraid I swallowed some and is stuck because it feels like a gagging dry peice of plastic is hanging around and makes me panic. It has been there for hours now and feel swollen. Most of the peices where sharp. I thought maybe I just got scraped but don't feel that's the case this time. No telling how many small particles went down. What should I do?
Wed, 2 Aug 2017
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  Anonymous's Response
's  Response
Hi. Most of the time swallowing small amounts of inert substances like plastic will not be particularly harmful. Sometimes if they are large or have jagged edges they can penetrate the lining of the esophagus or intestines that will generally result in considerable pain and possibly fever, which does require urgent medical attention.
If you feel something in the back of your throat you can try drinking a little water and see if that helps. If this does not help you may want to go to the ER where a GI physician can do an EGD (upper endoscopy) where they put you to sleep for a few minutes and visualize the back of the throat and upper digestive system including the esophagus/stomach/and first part the intestine called the duodenum. If they see something they can generally retrieve it with the scope.
If you do not have any symptoms, you can probably relax and the pieces will come out with the stool.
Hope this helps.
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Is There Any Harm If I Accidentally Swallowed Some Plastic Pieces?

Hi. Most of the time swallowing small amounts of inert substances like plastic will not be particularly harmful. Sometimes if they are large or have jagged edges they can penetrate the lining of the esophagus or intestines that will generally result in considerable pain and possibly fever, which does require urgent medical attention. If you feel something in the back of your throat you can try drinking a little water and see if that helps. If this does not help you may want to go to the ER where a GI physician can do an EGD (upper endoscopy) where they put you to sleep for a few minutes and visualize the back of the throat and upper digestive system including the esophagus/stomach/and first part the intestine called the duodenum. If they see something they can generally retrieve it with the scope. If you do not have any symptoms, you can probably relax and the pieces will come out with the stool. Hope this helps.