A month ago, three-year-old Aiza Chaudhary, a Kurla resident, had somehow managed to get some supari (betel nut) into her mouth at a wedding function. A small bit of it, however, became lodged in her lungs, but she felt no discomfort for an entire month.
Aiza, daughter of Chaudhary accidentally eaten up betel nut, last week was suffering from pneumonia. When medication didn’t improve her condition, a CT scan revealed a blockage in her windpipe that was making it difficult for her to breathe. The scan report showed something stuck in the left lobe of her lungs, but the doctors could not tell what exactly it was.
Dr. Pratibha Singhal, chest physician, interventional pulmonologist at Bombay Hospital, said, “The CT scan showed pneumonia, probably caused due to a blockage. The doctors suspected it to be a food particle, but only after it was removed, was it discovered that it was supari.
She added, “As in children the most likely reason for lung blockage is a foreign body, she initially underwent a procedure called rigid bronchoscopy. But, the particle only got lodged deeper, hence I removed it with flexible bronchoscopy. This procedure helped avoid the need for surgery to remove the part of the lung where the supari had become stuck.”
Aiza was admitted to a hospital where the doctors tried to perform two rigid bronchoscopies, a procedure performed for both diagnosis and treatment of lung disorders, but they could not remove the offending particle. In fact, in the second bronchoscopy procedure, the particle got lodged further into her lungs.
“We have put the child on antibiotics and she will be discharged in the next two days. The swelling in the lungs will subside over the next two or three weeks,” said Dr. Singhal.
The parents were initially puzzled about how the supari had got into Aiza’s lungs, but when they asked her, she told them she had eaten it at a wedding last month.
“We don’t know when she got her hands on the supari at the wedding. We were very scared as she couldn’t breathe properly,” said her father who works with a shop at Kurla and who did not wish to be named.
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