Representative image.

RAIPUR: In a shocking case, a five-year-old kid from Dhamtari swallowed toothbrush and remained silent until six months ago when he started feeling excruciating pain while having food and urinating. Afraid of being scolded by mother, the kid Keshav Sahu didn't complain about the discomfort. When the pain aggravated, his parents consulted doctors at Raipur medical college, who detected a stone of 5 centimetres in his urinary bladder along with some foreign object.

"The foreign object was not clear in the x-ray and ultrasound. When we pulled the stone out of the boy's bladder, a 15-cm long stick came out with the stone covered with blood. Later, we came to know that it was a toothbrush," said Dr J Patel, paediatric surgeon, Raipur medical college, who treated Keshav.

On being asked, hesitant Keshav told doctors that he didn't remember when the toothbrush got down his throat. His father Hemant Sahu was taken aback when he got to know that his child kept a toothbrush in his stomach for almost a year and never told about this to anyone.

Dr Patel said, "It was an unusual case as generally we come across cases like swallowing of coins by children. The toothbrush pricked three holes in boy's intestine and then reached the bladder. People generally die in such cases if they are not provided treatment on time but how this little boy survived is nothing less than a miracle," he added.

Dr Amin Meman, another paediatric specialist, who joined the operation, informed, "The boy might have swallowed the toothbrush a year ago and started complaining about the pains some six months ago. A stone of 5 cms take 6 months to form and he must have started having pains after the formation of the stone in the bladder."

Doctors removed the stone and have repaired the urinary bladder and damaged intestines of the boy, who underwent an operation on Wednesday. The boy is in hospital for a week and will have to visit doctors until his intestines and bladder start functioning normally.

