Tips for treating a date pit stuck in your throat

For some friends who like to eat dates, they will more or less encounter the situation of date pits getting stuck in their throats. In fact, because the date pits are relatively small, it is easy for them to get stuck in the throat if you are not careful. Generally speaking, when encountering this situation, you can help relieve it by drinking water, etc., but if the date pit is seriously stuck in the throat, you will need to master some skills.

A few days ago, 81-year-old Mrs. Zhang accidentally swallowed a date pit while eating dates. The old man just felt something stuck in his throat at the time. After trying to vomit several times and failing, he remembered a "folk remedy" and took a big bite of steamed bun, ready to "push" the date pit down. However, he didn't expect that not only did the date pit not go down, but his throat hurt even more. The family immediately took the old man to Anshan City Third Hospital for medical treatment, and the doctor finally removed the date pit using professional tools.

Li Yunqiang, director of the Otolaryngology Department of Anshan City Third Hospital, said that similar cases of accidental swallowing of foreign objects are more common among the elderly and children. In the past week or so, three patients have come to the hospital for accidentally swallowing foreign objects such as date pits.

Here, doctors remind citizens that when the elderly and children at home eat red dates, they must pick out the date pits to avoid similar incidents from happening.

In addition, if a sharp foreign object such as a date pit gets stuck in your throat, you must go to the hospital immediately for medical treatment and never eat hard objects to press down. This will at best cause the date pit to get stuck deeper, making it more difficult to remove. Also, since the esophageal wall is very thin and the two ends of the date pit are relatively pointed, it can easily cause damage to the esophageal mucosa.

1. Call the hospital number 120 for help.

2. If there is not enough time and a child under three years old has a date pit stuck in the throat, the rescuer should immediately pick up the child, pinch both sides of the child's cheekbones with one hand, place the arm on the child's chest, and support the back of the child's neck with the other hand, so that the child lies face down on the rescuer's knees. Pat the child on the back 1-5 times and observe whether the child spits out the foreign object. If the foreign body is not vomited out by the above method, another posture can be adopted: turn the child over and lie on the hard ground or bed board. The rescuer kneels or stands at the side of the child's feet, or sits down and makes the child ride on the rescuer's thighs, facing forward. The rescuer places the middle or index fingers of both hands on the child's abdomen below the thorax and above the navel, and presses upward quickly but gently. Repeat until the date pits are discharged.

3. If applied to adults, the rescuer stands behind the patient, wraps his arms around the patient's waist, then makes a fist with one hand and places the thumb side of the fist on the patient's abdomen above the umbilicus below the thorax. Use your other hand to make a fist and strike upward quickly to compress the patient's abdomen. Repeat the above steps until the foreign body is expelled.

4. If the stuck person has no one to help him, he can only save himself. The method of self-rescue can be the last 3 steps of the 4 steps for adults mentioned above, or he can bend down slightly, lean on a fixed horizontal object, press the upper abdomen with the edge of the object, and quickly impact upward. Repeat until the date pits are expelled.