My sister had to have surgery the other day, While visiting her I had thoughts of what happened to me this past year.

I had a serious case of indigestion..

Keep them out of your Mouth.

I was not trying to be “Cool” or anything. I used toothpicks to floss my teeth after a meal. To this day I still do not know the exact day it happened, But I swallowed a toothpick. The only explanation I can come up with is that it had to happen while I was asleep.

I must have had a great meal, grabbed my toothpick, went to lay down(some of us get sleepy after a meal) fell asleep with the toothpick in my mouth and it went down. Two weeks before my surgery I went to my doctor complaining of right side stomach pain. She sent me to the hospital for x-rays. Nothing was found. Got some pain pills and went home for week. The pain went away. I went back to work.

Two weeks later I get up to play golf. My stomach is killing me, but I love golf so I try to ignore it. I tried drinking something to make me belch thinking it was gas. I make it through the game and go home. I get home and my stomach is really hurting on the left side now. I tried laxatives and everything, Nothing was working. I then drove to the local emergency room.

I get checked in, finally see a doctor. This time I had a cat scan to see what was wrong. I remember laying on the table full of pain medication and the doctor came in and saying these words, “Mr. McCullough we have to get you in surgery ASAP, you have a toothpick sticking in your intestines.” The two weeks I did not have any pain the toothpick must have traveled from my right to my left side.

Happy to say I am fine now and to say no wooden objects will ever get near my mouth again.  I can laugh and joke about it now.

Dental floss is all I use. Hope it does not happen to you.

Other cases of Toothpick Swallowing:

https://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/extract/352/21/2249

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12181727