As kids, we’d sit at the table while our mothers carefully cleaned the fish, pinching out each tiny bone, inspecting every bite, and issuing those stern warnings, “One small bone can get stuck inside!” We’d roll our eyes. However, in Thailand, a 45-year-old woman proved that mothers do know best. She had swallowed a fish bone with her meal. Then two weeks later, it stabbed through the tissue and pierced her neck.
In Thailand, a woman named Sang Lan recently learned the hard way why fish bones are no joke. While eating a homemade dish featuring Pla Kayaeng, a catfish, and Pla Lod, an eel-like fish infamous for its thin, sharp bones, she felt a prick in her throat. Mildly painful, but nothing dramatic. Like many, she shrugged it off and tried the age-old hacks like eating rice and bread crusts to push the bone down. But she was dumbfounded.
Despite a hospital visit and two X-rays, doctors didn’t find anything alarming. She was told to rest. The pain lingered. Then came the swelling. And two weeks later, the truly bizarre part happened. There was a swelling on her neck, which was unusual for her. When she pressed on her neck, she felt something hard. Then that something stabbed through her skin. A 2-centimeter fish bone had burrowed its way from her throat to just beneath her jaw and poked right out like a tiny white dagger.
Bone Indigestion
She was misdiagnosed multiple times. Some said it might be thyroid due to the swelling of the neck, and some doctors ignored it, thinking it might be a small irritation. Nobody took her seriously till the bone actually stuck out of her throat. The images of the incident were originally posted by her husband before being taken down. They were straight out of a medical horror show. Doctors were baffled. It took two weeks, two doctors, and some neck-poking from Sang herself before anyone took it seriously. Even more unbelievable? The very thing that made it worse might’ve been her repeated pressing on the spot, helping the bone travel deeper through muscle tissue until it broke through the surface.
Fish bones are commonly swallowed, but cases like this are rare, almost alien. A bone navigating soft tissue and the fact that it pierced through the skin without causing her more damage was quite a miracle!
Who knew dinner could turn into a surgical thriller? One moment you’re enjoying homemade fish curry, and in the very next moment, your meal is penetrating through your neck. It’s absurd, but the ultimate reminder is sometimes, it’s what tries to come out later.