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A Little Hard to Swallow

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In weird news this week, it’s been reported in the South China Morning Post that a 64-year old man has undergone surgery to remove a toothbrush from his stomach.  The kicker is that he swallowed the toothbrush when he was 12.  Apparently he was afraid to tell his parents and figured that it would just dissolve.  Turns out even stomach acid is no match for hard plastic – his stomach started to bother him last year.

It took the surgery team 80 minutes to remove the 7-inch toothbrush – it was stuck in “a crook of the intestine” where it had been living happily for decades.  Yikes.

I’m not sure how you can swallow a toothbrush but as Hamlet said “more things in heaven and earth”.  Maybe he is one of those folks who brushes their tongue with their toothbrush and got a little carried away?  Maybe the dog surprised him in the bathroom while he was brushing?  Maybe he was practicing to become a sword swallower?

What kind of toothbrush do you use?  Toothpaste?  Floss?

35 thoughts on “A Little Hard to Swallow”

  1. I use whatever I get free from the dentist when I go twice a year for checkups and cleaning.

    I had very cavity ridden teeth as a child, not because I didn’t brush, but because I ate so many popsickles I had sugar water in my mouth much of the time. It also didn’t help that I used Stripe toothpaste, later found to be loaded with sugar as a way to entice children to use it.

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    1. OMG, I don’t even want to know if there’s sugar in my toothpaste. My uncle was a dentist so my dental upbringing was fairly strict. Mom often stood over me while I brushed and we were only allowed to have Crest in the household. When I got out on my own in college, I rebelled and I started using Aquafresh because it seemed the opposite of Crest. I am still using Aquafresh all these years later.

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      1. I’m surprised Aquafresh is still on the market. It could have gone the way of Ipana.
        (Brusha brusha brusha,
        get the new Ipana,
        brusha brusha brusha,
        it’s better for your teeeeeth.)

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  2. My dentist, actually my hygienist, convinced me about three years ago that I should move to an electric toothbrush. I balked at first, but it’s turned out to be a good thing. I use it every night on the theory that if I don’t use it. I’ve wasted all the money I spent on it. I’ve had good checkups since I’ve gotten it so hopefully that’s a reason as well.

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  4. My dad was a dentist. We weren’t allowed many sweets when we were kids. We could have desserts that Mom made, and sometimes orange pop or an orange Push-up from Grandma Ackman’s little country store across the lake from us.

    Dad would tell me to go brush my tooth. Which tooth? Well, you don’t know, do you, and I’m going to check.

    Dad had a hygienist, Jody, who passed away last winter, and a dental assistant, Rose. Rose became like family and still is. Dad left some money to her for dental hygiene training when he passed. She used it and has become legendary in her skill. She’s still my hygienist today, which is amazing. Last night she texted me and said that yesterday, July 10, 1972, Dad hired her for the first time. She’s still working part-time today, and my next appointment is in December. I schedule my appointments with Rose, not the dentist. I see whatever dentist is available. My dental health is great.

    I use soft or ultra soft Oral-B toothbrushes. I have an Oral-B electric toothbrush too (I use both). I use various kinds of dental floss, but my favorite is Dr. Tung’s.

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    1. I also schedule my appointments with my hygienist, whose name is Natalie. This last appointment was with someone else because Natalie is out on maternity leave. I don’t even know the name of the dentist who looked at my teeth at the end of my appointment.

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    2. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone else with a favorite dental floss but then the subject doesn’t often come up. It’s kind of like a friend of mine who once mentioned he had a favorite aspic.

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    3. For a while I could get grape flavored floss. I’m sure it was sugar coated and defeated the pupose. 8 out of 5 dentists would not support it…

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  5. We finally got ourselves electric toothbrushes a couple of years ago after years of urging by our dental hygienist. Our preferred hygienist is Tibetan and she works generally with our preferred dentist, who is asian. The toothbrushes, Oral-B models, came with an instruction sheet the size of a state highway map and have way too many unnecessary modes and features. I guess once an appliance is controlled by a chip it costs little to program in variations. If I had my way the toothbrush would just have an on-off switch.

    I am historically a negligent flosser. I just could never force myself to take the time when I was getting ready for bed. After my last dental appointment, I decided to make an experiment and floss every day until my next appointment to see if it makes a difference. So far I haven’t missed a day and it’s been a couple of months.

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  6. In my small town there was only one dentist and he filled anything that even remotely looked like a cavity. And he almost never used Novocaine. I dreaded going to him. I did brush my teeth at night but grew up eating a lot of candy and chewing a lot of gum. Flossing was unheard of. The end result is that I have a very expensive mouth. Besides my wisdom teeth, I’ve had 2 upper and 2 lower molars pulled (some for crowding because I have a small jaw and some for broken old fillings). All my upper teeth except one are crowned (the front 4 not for cavities but for appearance). I still have most of my original lower teeth – 2 crowns and 1 implant. I am religious about brushing and flossing now. I always use Sensodyne due to gum recession. Many years ago I lucked out on finding a good dental clinic with wonderful dentists and hygienists. I actually look forward to my twice yearly check ups. The dentist I have now is young enough that he’ll probably be my last one.

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    1. I have a mouth with history as well. Doubles of some adult teeth had to be pulled and then a couple more teeth since I have a small jaw. Retainer after that while the spaces closed up. Then the braces, then another retainer. Gum incision to let another tooth down that was stubborn. All four wisdom teeth came in at once (literally 10 months after I got married and was taken off my parents insurance). No room for them so they all had to come out. 3 out of 4 impacted. Another gum incision (don’t remember why but don’t let anybody do this to you — it’s the worst!) Then add a couple of crowns and a bridge over the years to round it out. And this is all with a fairly consistent dental regimen. I hate to think what kind of shape I’d be in if I’d lived 500 years ago.

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  7. My childhood dentist was the same one my parents went to and he was strictly old school. He worked solo- there was never a hygienist involved. I was a teenager before he upgraded to a high speed drill. He never, in my experience, used novocaine. I suppose that might have given me a dread of dentistry but it hasn’t. Maybe after Dr. Nolden every other dental experience is a piece of cake.

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    1. I wonder if his toothbrush had one of those little rubber thingies on the end of the handle. And what exactly were they meant to do— massage your gums? Whose idea was that?

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  10. Sounds like many of us went to the same dentist I did. No wonder I still have dental phobia. Although I think he always had an assistant. Dr. Olson. Second floor, hosptial green walls, smelled of rubbing alcohol from the door onward up the dark, dingy, green stairway. Random toys in the waiting room. Shelves lined with denture molds. Him in the white smock buttoned to the neck. Deep voice, old school glasses. [shiver] Still gives me the creeps. All my siblings went there, we all were scared of him.
    He retired when I was about 18 and I went to Dr. Bouquet. I had no idea dentistry could be as nice as Dr. Bouquet did it! And now I see Dr. Bouquet’s son- briefly- in the assembly line process of dentists now.
    I keep asking when they’re gonna have the laser drill and pain free proceedures. Getting there. I kinda miss the spit sink. 🙂

    Every now and then we borrow a dentist chair from another theater. It’s the only local one around and it weighs 300 lbs and takes a crew to move.

    I use an electric, and Kids Colgate toothpaste because I hate mint flavoring. I use the flossing handle thingy, because I gag easy sticking my fingers in my throat.

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  12. Early in my nursing career we admitted a two year old girl who had been running with a toothbrush in her mouth and fell. Only the bristles were protruding from her mouth. She punctured the back of her throat. She developed abcesses in her esophagus and was hospitalized for several weeks. This happened at her grandma’s house – her g’ma was just devastated and spent a lot of time at the hospital. Luckily the little girl did recover – she would be about 40 years old by now.

    Forgot to answer one of the questions. I use a dentist supplied toothbrush – a soft Oral B. I also have a water pik which was supplied by the dentist after my implant.

    My hygienist uses a special water pik first so there is much less scraping, which I appreciate.

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  14. When my sister and I were kids we had well water with no fluoride. We had a lot of tooth decay. My sister was three years older, and had more decay of her adult teeth. I was a little luckier in that mostly my teeth that decayed were baby teeth, and shortly after my adult teeth came in we moved and had fluoridated water. I still do have a lot of fillings, though, a a few crowns.

    I had teeth that were too crowded, and had two teeth pulled, one upper and one lower, to ease the crowding. I remember the day I had them pulled – my mother brought me to the dentist in St. Paul, but she first took me out to lunch at Dayton’s River Room. I wasn’t supposed to eat first, since the dentist had planned for general anesthesia. Because I had eaten, the plan changed and I had novocaine only.

    It didn’t hurt, but I still sort of remember the sound of the teeth being wrenched from their sockets.

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  15. I was fortunate to have perfect teeth. From 1st grade through high school, we had an annual visit to a local dental clinic for dental exams. Subsequent visits were scheduled as needed for filling of cavities and other needed repairs. I remember the dental tools as being crude, and the drills painfully slow, and, of course, Novocaine was usually out of the question. There was no teeth cleaning and no dental hygienist involved. I recall sitting in the waiting room with a small bowl of mercury and a wooden stick to stir it to entertain us while we waited out turn. (This was during the same era that shoe stores had x-ray machines you could stick your feet into to see if your shoes fit.)

    Dentistry has come a long way in my lifetime, but despite the fact that most dental procedures are no longer white-knuckle affairs, they are still anxiety producing for me. My current dentist is a Hmong woman. She’s gentle, highly skilled, and very thorough; I feel safe in her hands.

    I’ve used an electric toothbrush for decades. I’m a somewhat sporadic floss and Waterpik user.

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