Doctors remove 263 coins, 100 nails from man's stomach in MP

New Delhi: Doctors performing surgery on a man believing it to be a case of severe food poisoning were in for a shock when the reason for the patient's abdominal pains turned out to be 263 coins and 100 nails sitting in his stomach.

35-year-old Maksud Khan was admitted to the hospital after he complained of abdominal pains, leading doctors to suspect that it was due to food poisoning.

However, upon investigating the matter with an endoscopy, it was revealed that his stomach was full of hundreds of coins, 1.5kg of nails, dozens of shaving blades, shards of glass, stones, and a 6-inch piece of rusted iron shackle.

The operation was performed at Sanjay Gandhi Hospital in Satna, Madhya Pradesh wherein a whopping 7kg of foreign objects were removed from Khan's stomach.

Khan, who worked as an auto-rickshaw driver, had been complaining of stomach pains for three months. He is believed to be mentally unstable and according to Yahoo News UK, his family was unaware of his strange eating habits.

Dr Priyank Sharma, who led the surgical team, said: “The patient was complaining of stomach pain, so we thought of getting an endoscopy done.

“We were shocked to discover that coins, nails and nut-bolts in his stomach. We come across such a case for the first in our career. This man looks mentally unstable as no sane person would do something like this,” the report said.

Khan's relatives say he had slipped into depression and may have become hooked on to eating metal objects.

The report further mentioned that one doctor who operated on Khan stated that while the coins and nails hadn’t caused any problems initially, they were close to causing him serious harm.

“The operation was done in the nick of the time as some of the nails lodged had pierced his stomach, caused bleeding and resulting in loss of haemoglobin,” the doctor said.