The old man coughed and gasped for years, and the cause was a fin

Modern Express News (correspondent Su Xuan, reporter Zhuang Jianxiang) Yangzhou citizen Uncle Jiang did not expect that the symptoms of cough, wheezing, and breathing difficulties that had tormented him for 5 years were actually caused by foreign bodies hidden in the trachea for 5 years. Recently, Uncle Jiang took out a large fish fin through a bronchoscope at the Subei People's Hospital in Yangzhou, relieving his repeated cough, sputum cough, shortness of breath, hoarseness, and paroxysmal dyspnea at night that had recurred in the past five years.

△ Courtesy of the correspondent

Uncle Jiang's family recalls that 5 years ago, the elderly began to have frequent symptoms of respiratory discomfort, sometimes even causing hoarseness to almost impossible to speak. The family accompanied Uncle Jiang to the local hospital for many times, and no abnormalities were found in the filming. In addition, Uncle Jiang has been smoking for 40 years and has a history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for more than 10 years, and the local doctors have treated the old problems of bronchitis and emphysema. Unexpectedly, Uncle Jiang's condition has recently worsened, and he has not seen any improvement after eating the medicine prescribed by the doctor. The family then sent him to the Northern Jiangsu People's Hospital for treatment.

"At that time, the patient was admitted to our geriatric department, and the tracheal stenosis was found through CT examination, and the bronchoscopy found that there was a foreign body in the trachea." Chen Hui, deputy chief physician of the Department of Geriatric Medicine of Subei People's Hospital, introduced that everyone was surprised at that time, and a fish fin was actually stuck in the trachea.

After the fins were removed by bronchial foreign body removal, Uncle Jiang's years of illness were swept away and he has now recovered and been discharged from the hospital.

Why did Uncle Jiang go to the local hospital for examination many times, but did not find a foreign body in the trachea? Chen Hui said that it may be because the sternum and fish bones in the orthopedic image of Uncle Jiang overlapped and have not been detected. In addition, the patient has smoked for 40 years and has a history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and his tracheal foreign body has been missed. Fortunately, the fish bone did not form a local granuloma, and the trachea did not narrow, otherwise the patient would be stimulated by a foreign body in the airway, resulting in narrowing of the airway, and it was easy to suffocate due to sputum blockage.

The Modern Express reporter learned that tracheal and bronchial foreign bodies are more common in infants and children, and the elderly are relatively rare. Due to physiological reasons, the throat muscles of the elderly are relaxed, when eating and swallowing, the glottis is not tightly closed, or when speaking, laughing, the glottis is open, foreign bodies are easy to enter the airway, and some elderly people suffer from chronic bronchitis, chronic laryngitis, sequelae of cerebral infarction, Parkinson's syndrome, etc., usually have chronic cough, cough after eating, etc., when the foreign body enters the trachea, bronchi causes cough, often fail to attract the attention of the elderly, easy to miss the medical history, thereby delaying diagnosis.