<p>One morning last July, 62-year-old Bengaluru resident Pramod Atani woke up with a terrible cough. He also realised, to his horror, that a three-tooth set from his dentures was missing.</p>.<p>As the day wore on, the coughing got persistent, but there was no sign of his dentures. Atani didn’t make the connection then — that he had not misplaced his dentures, but they had instead slipped down his airway while he had slept and wound up in his lungs.</p>.<p>What followed, according to Dr Satyanarayana Mysore from Manipal Hospitals, was a year of torment.</p>.<p>Atani came to believe that he was afflicted with cancer, and when that diagnosis failed he was convinced that he had tuberculosis; when that test too came back negative, he came to believe that he had a mystery ailment for which there was no medical diagnosis. </p>.<p>It was only recently, following a visit to an X-ray centre, that he was told about a strange growth in his left lung, which medical staff classified as a “foreign body”.</p>.<p>“The patient thought he had a malignant growth in his lung and based on X-ray scans, we went into the case fully believing the same thing,” said Dr Satyanarayana Mysore. “To our shock, we found that foreign body was instead a three-tooth set of dentures, with some silver in them.”</p>.<p>Just a few months ago, Dr Satyanarayana and his team had been confronted by another case of a patient swallowing dentures, although the incident had happened while the patient was at her dentist’s office.</p>.<p>Another person who categorically also refused to believe it was the patient himself until Dr Rai retrieved the denture following a bronchoscopy.</p>.<p>“The entire experience has put the patient off dentures. He is now going in for tooth implants instead,” Dr Rai said.</p>
<p>One morning last July, 62-year-old Bengaluru resident Pramod Atani woke up with a terrible cough. He also realised, to his horror, that a three-tooth set from his dentures was missing.</p>.<p>As the day wore on, the coughing got persistent, but there was no sign of his dentures. Atani didn’t make the connection then — that he had not misplaced his dentures, but they had instead slipped down his airway while he had slept and wound up in his lungs.</p>.<p>What followed, according to Dr Satyanarayana Mysore from Manipal Hospitals, was a year of torment.</p>.<p>Atani came to believe that he was afflicted with cancer, and when that diagnosis failed he was convinced that he had tuberculosis; when that test too came back negative, he came to believe that he had a mystery ailment for which there was no medical diagnosis. </p>.<p>It was only recently, following a visit to an X-ray centre, that he was told about a strange growth in his left lung, which medical staff classified as a “foreign body”.</p>.<p>“The patient thought he had a malignant growth in his lung and based on X-ray scans, we went into the case fully believing the same thing,” said Dr Satyanarayana Mysore. “To our shock, we found that foreign body was instead a three-tooth set of dentures, with some silver in them.”</p>.<p>Just a few months ago, Dr Satyanarayana and his team had been confronted by another case of a patient swallowing dentures, although the incident had happened while the patient was at her dentist’s office.</p>.<p>Another person who categorically also refused to believe it was the patient himself until Dr Rai retrieved the denture following a bronchoscopy.</p>.<p>“The entire experience has put the patient off dentures. He is now going in for tooth implants instead,” Dr Rai said.</p>