A 35-year-old man has discovered the nose ring he lost five years ago — lodged in his lung. He was rushed to the ER late last month with a feeling that 'something was blocking [his] airways'. But X-ray showed a 0.6-inch retainer embedded in the upper left lobe of his lung.
'I Lost My Nose Ring And Found It 5 Years Later — In My Lung'
By
Zainab Pervez in
Bizarre
On 19th September 2022
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A piercing addict who lost his nose ring in the night was horrified five years later when he discovered it had been inside his lung that whole time.
Joey Lykins, 35, was rushed to the ER late last month with a severe cough and a feeling that 'something was blocking [his] airways'.
Doctors feared these were warning signs of pneumonia, but X-rays showed the groundskeeper actually had a 0.6-inch — which he had worn in his septum — embedded inside the upper left lobe of his lung.
Lykins believes he inhaled the piece of metal during his sleep, saying that one morning five years ago he woke up to find it was missing and after 'turning my bedroom upside down' decided it was lost and bought another.
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“I woke up and my septum piercing was gone, and I couldn’t find it anywhere,” the distraught groundskeeper described. “I’d had it pierced for three or four years [by that point].”
He added, “I thought maybe I’d swallowed it. I looked everywhere. I flipped the bed over. I did everything.”
After failing to find the missing horseshoe barbell, Lykins finally gave up and replaced the nasal ornament.
The Cincinnati native then forgot about the lost accessory until several weeks ago, when he woke up at 2:30 am “coughing really hard.”
“I was coughing so hard that my back was starting to hurt,” the poor fellow described. “I felt like something was blocking my airways, and I thought I was sick.”
‘About 2.30am I was coughing so hard that my back was starting to hurt and I was a little concerned so I went to the hospital. I thought maybe I had pneumonia.
At the hospital, the doctor’s x-rayed Joey’s lungs to check for pneumonia.
The results took his breath away: Subsequent X-rays revealed that the ring was inexplicably lodged in the upper lobe of his left lung. “The doctor came in and showed me the X-ray picture and said, ‘Does this look familiar?’ ” the flabbergasted piercing enthusiast exclaimed. “I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me! I’ve been looking for that.’ “
“I didn’t know what was going on, but I never [would] have thought that’s what it was,” he added.
Lykins believes that the ring had fallen out of his nose while he was sleeping and then traveled down his “windpipe” and ended up in his lung.
‘It just went down my windpipe I guess.
‘My wife was dumbfounded when I told her. The doctor said I’d won best case of the night.’
‘It had never caused me problems, I’ve coughed but I never thought too much of it.
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Three days later Joey went to have a bronchoscopy. A thin tube was passed down his throat and into his lungs and the piercing was pulled out and returned to him.
The 35-year-old groundskeeper knows it’s hard to believe unless you have proof – so he made sure he kept copies of his x-ray and even images from the surgery that shows the ring being extracted from inside him.
‘I don’t know if it could have caused damage but it was wrapped up in scar tissue so it didn’t look like it was going anywhere.
‘I’m glad it didn’t puncture my lung.
Lykins — who has 12 piercings kept this one as a souvenir.
‘I kept it as a souvenir, I won’t be wearing it again.
He suffered no complications from the surgery. It's a respiratory “Lord of the Rings” journey, he'll never forget.