PAINTER Terry Preston has had a sewing needle lodged in his liver for at least 15 years — with no idea how it got there.
Experts said he may even have swallowed it unaware as a child.
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Terry, 54, said: “My first thought was that I maybe once got so drunk that I rolled on it or something like that!
“Even then, I don’t know how it would reach my liver, but somehow it has.”
It was discovered in 2019 when he went to hospital with suspected pancreatitis. Medics double-checked and it showed up in scans dating back to 2006.
Terry, from Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, said: “I couldn’t believe it when I saw it. I had no idea it was there.”
He says he is now in pain and wants the 5.7cm needle removed.
But doctors believe discomfort may be psychological because he now knows it is there. And they say an operation would be risky.
Expert Dr Raghib Ali said: “Small foreign objects can be absorbed into the liver through the gut.
“They may pass through the stomach and intestine and get lodged in the liver, but it’s extremely unusual as normally they will pass out the back end.
“The liver will have isolated this needle, so it won’t be causing damage. And as the liver contains so many blood vessels, cutting it out may be far more dangerous than leaving it there.”
Source: Sun
