If this was a lesson worth teaching in 2004, it’s a warning worth heeding today:

A 27-year-old lady presented with persistent cough, sputum and fever for the preceding six months. Inspite of trials with antibiotics and anti-tuberculosis treatment for the preceeding four months, her symptoms did not improve. A subsequent chest radiograph showed non-homogeneous collapse-consolidation of right upper lobe. Videobronchoscopy revealed an inverted bag like structure in right upper lobe bronchus and rigid bronchoscopic removal with biopsy forceps confirmed the presence of a condom. Detailed retrospective history also confirmed accidental inhalation of the condom during fellatio.

Six months! She must have thought, “Hey, I started coughing a while after I inhaled that condom. And I never chucked it back up. These antibiotics aren’t going to cut it—I should tell my doctor.” But no. She waited until the truth was revealed by videobronchoscopy. This strikes me as not unsimilar to the woman who carried a half-gestated calcified baby for three years and just commented that everything was going great except “the baby never came out.”

Tip from NaFun.

15 replies on “Trojan Hoarse”

  1. Come on, who DOESN’T carry a baby around in their womb for several years after it is due. I mean you just forget about those things. “Yeah, baby was due last summer. Guess I should have that looked at”

  3. Stone baby removal is clearly against gods law. Maybe god is just encasing the little thing in stone until judgement day. Stone babies should be carried around for life just like god intended, especially as a reminder of the sort of thing that can happen to you if you are the sort of woman who finds herself in a position to inhale condoms.

  9. In college one of my roommate’s girlfriends would cough alot, and had the inhaler and everything. This went on for years, she had been coughing like that since before we met her. One day she was REALLY coughing, and out came like a chapstick lid or something along those lines(I actually can’t quite remember what it was, I think it might have come from a water bottle, or something). She was all like “Oh shit! I remember I was all drunk and was drinking water and I thought I just inhaled some water down my windpipe.” And now her coughing is gone.

  10. I want to know what search terms were being used when someone found this.

    If it weren’t on PubMed, I’d label it an urban legend.

    Off to get this cough checked out.

  11. Wow. You’d think they’d do a chest scan before starting a cougher on anti-TB drugs… then again, it would help for her to not be completely obtuse. 😉

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