The 41-year-old resident of Tongchuan in China's Shaanxi province has been experiencing severe headaches and breathing difficulties for six years, but the cause of her condition, which turned out to be rather unusual, came to light only at the beginning of January 2018.
The check-up showed that throughout these years the woman had a 3-centimeter-long chili pepper stuck in one of her lungs. Luo Lifeng, a doctor at the hospital, said she could have choked on it while eating a meal, South China Morning Post reported.
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At first, the doctor tried to take the pepper out of her right lung by using a probe, but its lower part was already seriously infected, so a more intricate surgical procedure was inevitable. It is reported that the chili pepper was successfully removed.
According to doctors, swallowed foreign bodies in the airways are more common in children under the age of five years, but rare in adults.