An asthmatic woman was rushed to the hospital after she unknowingly inhaled an earring, Live Science reported.
The unnamed Australian woman was at a New Year's Eve party when she started having trouble breathing, according to the new case published in the journal BMJ Case Reports.
She reached for her inhaler and breathed in, completely unaware of the heart-shaped stud earring that was lodged inside. Instead of feeling relief, the woman's throat began to itch and she started coughing up blood and couldn't breathe.
Paramedics rushed her to a hospital and she told doctors she believed she swallowed a piece of foil from a medical pack in her purse, Live Science reported. An X-ray and following CT scan revealed it was no piece of foil, but a stud earring stuck in her right bronchus, a main airway that leads to the lungs.
According to the case report, the woman heard a rattling sound in her inhaler when she removed it from her purse at the party but assumed something dislodged inside.
Doctors noted her emergency could have been avoided if she kept the cap on her inhaler while carrying it around.
"Unfortunately, she was not taught to replace the cap on the inhaler after she has used it," said Dr. Lucinda Blake, a core medical trainee at St. Vincent's Hospital, according to Live Science. "While her inhaler was uncapped in her bag, an earring that was also loose in her bag found its way into the inhaler and became lodged in it."
While inhaling earrings is rare, it's not unheard of for people to accidentally inhale thread or dust after using capless inhalers, Dr. Brahim Ardolic of Staten Island University Hospital told Live Science.
The patient underwent a bronchoscopy - in which a camera is inserted into the throat - and the earring was removed. She was also given antibiotics to prevent infection and is expected to fully recover, Blake said.
Had the earring not been removed, Blake said it might have become embedded in her bronchus after the body healed over it.
