Posted on 11/29/2018 12:17:38 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Pediatricians have to deal with all kinds of interesting situations in their daily work with children, and kids eating random objects is one of them. Children just love to stick stuff in their mouths, and while parents do their best to keep tiny toys away from eager eaters there’s always a chance that something like a Lego finds its way into the stomach of a youngster.
A half-dozen pediatricians decided to see what effect, if any, a tiny yellow Lego head would have on their own bodies by volunteering to swallow them. Their findings were reported in the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health.
The primary goal of the research was to see how long it takes for a tiny toy like a Lego to find its way through the human body. To do this, the pediatricians swallowed the toys and then monitored their bowel movements over the following days until they located the toy.
Since they were eating toys and poking through their own poop the team decided to have a bit of fun with the nomenclature. “Pre‐ingestion bowel habit was standardized by the Stool Hardness and Transit (SHAT) score,” the study read. “Participants ingested a Lego head, and the time taken for the object to be found in the participant’s stool was recorded. The primary outcome was the Found and Retrieved Time (FART) score.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
That sounds about right. My brother had the knack for that kind of experimentation, swallowing down chewing gum, cardboard, marbles, and the heads of plastic toy army men before discovering pennies to be the superior indicator material. The digestive tract worked a magical transformation of dull pennies to bright and shiny.
Since a state mental hospital was involved, one suspects that the patient had autism spectrum disorder or schizophrenia, which are frequently associated with pica eating disorders.
My father, an old time country doctor, accidentally swallowed a dental appliance and resorted to the same technique to recover it. About two days later he recovered the dental appliance, carefully cleaned and autoclaved it and continued to use it for years.
LOL
I know the feeling.
On vacation with my family. We went to a restaurant. I accidentally left my retainer on the food tray. The contents of the food tray went into the garbage. We drove back to the restaurant and the waitress pointed me to the thing out back and I had to go through it. Luckily I found it quickly. The waitress gave me some bleach and I scrubbed my retainer with my toothbrush. Putting that in my mouth the first time was not fun.
That is one crappy story, if you ask me!
Over here we assess the FART score differently.
Some scientists are trying to cure Cancer....others are pooping Legos.
LOL. Excellent point!
(Maybe because that wouldn't have made them famous?)
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