Young
people are being warned about the dangers of magnetic tongue studs, after
reports of serious medical emergencies.
The
head teacher of St Matthew's Roman Catholic High School has sent out an alert
to parents and spoken to pupils. The studs give the wearer the look of a tongue
piercing but without a hole. If accidentally swallowed, the magnets - designed
to be worn either side of the tongue - can stick together, trapping parts of
the intestine and leading to perforation of the bowel. While magnetic facial
studs can be bought online, schoolchildren are thought to be fashioning their
own tongue versions using magnetic earrings and ball bearings from toy puzzles.
In
his letter to parents, head teacher Kevin Hogan said: "We have spoken to
all pupils about this matter and warned them of the potentially harmful
consequences of swallowing these magnets. "If your child has accidentally
swallowed one or more of these balls you should seek medical advice
immediately."
Dr
Anil Thomas George and Dr Sandeep Motiwale, of Queen's Medical Centre in
Nottingham, wrote a letter to medical journal the Lancet asking doctors to
advise parents of the dangers. They said two young children in the East
Midlands had been admitted to hospital for surgery to remove magnets that had
been swallowed. They wrote:
"Parents need to be alerted to the potential risk of silent bowel
perforation and fistulation from accidental ingestion of magnets in children.
"Accidental
ingestion of magnetic foreign bodies, which was once rare, has become more
common owing to the increasing availability of toys with magnetic elements.
"A
solitary ingested magnet can pass through the gut spontaneously. However,
ingestion of multiple magnets or a single magnet along with another metallic
part can cause them to stick to each other with forces of up to 1,300G [gauss],
compressing the intervening bowel and leading to subsequent fistulation and
perforation."
Source:
BBC News
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