The 5-cm-long front artificial teeth were lodged in Lajwanti Mulchandani’s food pipe
An old lady, who by accident swallowed her dentures along with her daily dose of pills, was literally rescued from the jaws of death. A month ago, Lajwanti Mulchandani, 64, was rummaging through her box of medicines to figure out her evening dose of tablets. Her 3-year-old grand-daughter Ishani was playfully sprinting around. Ishani helped Lajwanti take her pills daily. On that fateful evening, while feeding her grandma medicines, Ishani’s hand accidentally hit Lajwanti’s jaw.
Trecherously so, Lajwanti swallowed two of her front artificial teeth along with sharp metal hooks. “I did not realize this immediately. After close to fifteen minutes, a sharp pain made me bawl,” Lajwanti told DNA.
While the food pipe is one to one and a half centimeters in diameter, the artificial teeth were five centimeters in length and two and half centimeters in breadth. “They were tightly lodged in the food pipe. I was whining in pain. I could not speak, neither could I eat or drink,” she said.
With no one home, except her baby grand-daughter, Lajwanti panicked and called her son Inder. “We strided from one hospital to another but to no avail,” said Inder.
When they landed up at Kohinoor Hospital in Kurla, Lajwanti was asked to undergo an X-Ray and later a CT scan.
After sustaining fifteen hours of trauma, the artificial teeth and metal hooks were removed by doctors through optical forceps. However, the procedure was highly challenging. The sharp metal hooks posed a formidable risk of tearing apart the food pipe that could result in bleeding and would further require a surgery to correct the trauma.
That Lajwanti suffered from diabetes, thyroid troubles and hypertension were not helping at all. “The food pipe is a rubbery stretchable organ. As the width of the food pipe was narrower than the dentures, it got stretched considerably. We explained all risks to the patient and her family before embarking upon the surgery,” said Dr Sanjay Helale, ENT surgeon at the hospital.
“On inserting the optical forceps, which is an endoscope fitted with a high-end camera we realized that the metal hooks of the artificial teeth were very sharp. The sharp edges were deftly rotated so that the sharp edges would not face the food pipe walls and then removed much to the patient’s relief,” said Dr Helale.
The procedure cost the family close to Rs 80,000. Lajwanti had got the artificial teeth fitted in her front upper jaw at the age of twenty-four. “No one in the family knew that I had been fitted with artificial teeth. Two of the four teeth had worn away considerably and need to be replaced, but mother never told us about it,” said Inder.
While her children are coaxing her to get new teeth made, Lajwanti plainly refused to undergo any dental procedure. “After this freak accident, which left me in deep pain for over fifteen hours, I have decided to not have my teeth fixed. I will sustain on soft foods from now on,” she said.
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 "Lajwanti Mulchandani")
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