Pen, removed from woman's stomach after 25 years, still works

Things like this are why medical case reports make for absolutely fabulous reading.

Via Philip Bump

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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MORE: medicine • research papers • Science • Weird

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xzzy

The disgusting part is it’s a felt tip pen. I suspect that’s not ink they’re writing with!
- relawson
  
  yyyyyep. I was coming to post the same!
donovan acree

Who would test that?
bo1n6bo1n6

When I was a kid I stuck 2 dimes in my nose(I know..I was only 6..)to make my nostrils look funny and they got stuck, long story short…I used a pen to dislodge them, one went out fine the other disappeared… Moral of the story: No matter how funny it is to put dimes in your nose, the gag isn’t worth it.
- ferd
  
  You’ve probably initiated a new Federal committee to investigate dimes, pens and the children of America. (sarcasm)
- http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
  
  I know, inflation. That dime isn’t worth squat now unless that is a compound interest bearing fee free sinus cavity.
  
  edit – inflation!
- rattypilgrim
  
  It wasn’t your fault. Nature abhors a vacuum.
- blueelm
  
  I don’t think I could fit a dime in my adult nostrils!
  - bo1n6bo1n6
    
    It’ll only cost a dime to try…
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    I can get a quarter in mine.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  A friend of mine wadded some paper into her ears as a toddler. It wasn’t discovered until she was in high school despite poor hearing test results. After it came out, she spent a few days acting like she had a hangover and why-is-everybody-yelling???
ferd

My mind just wandered off to John Cameron Swayze. The outboard motor in the fish tank was one of my favorites. Wasn’t there an ad with a Bic pen fired from a rifle? Ah, when the U.S. manufactured products that lasted.
RJ

While she was interrogating a spot on her tonsil with the pen she slipped, fell and swallowed the pen by mistake.

Ah, the old “I slipped and fell on it” excuse.
grimc

Whoever wrote that missed out on a prime Lionel Richie “Is it me you’re looking for?” gag.
- http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
  
  I was just about to post about how I can no longer read the word “Hello” freestanding without hearing it in Lionel’s voice in my head.
http://twitter.com/Skepticscalpel Skeptical Scalpel

You are only about a week late to this story. Here’s my tweet from 7/20/2011:

It still works. Pen removed from woman’s stomach after 25 years. http://www.medicaldaily.com/news/20120720/10991/pen-stomach-working-25-years.htm
- http://www.linkedin.com/in/kenahoo Ken Williams
  
  While we’re updating people on the latest news, though: it’s 2012 now. That happened about 6.7 months ago.
blueelm

I love the nice touch about it being useful sometimes to take a patients claims to have done something to themselves seriously.
oasisob1

Please let that pen show up on ebay.
vrplumber

Did she drink some sodium Bic-arbonate?
http://www.linkedin.com/in/kenahoo Ken Williams

A friend of mine went in for an x-ray as a high-schooler, for some reason, and they discovered a sewing needle in the skin of his belly, lodged in a bunch of scar tissue. The eye could be seen clear as day. Apparently he crawled over a needle as a baby, and likely cried, etc., but they couldn’t figure out why, I’m sure. He knew something felt funny there his whole life, but never knew why. And also, they decided it should just stay in there, so (as far as I know) it’s still there and he’s 35 or so years old now.