If a 17 year old swallows a glass marble will he be able to digest it out of his body?

Answer 1

only if they are 17. any other age, you would need a operation.

Answer 2

The human body cannot digest glass, not even a little. It will pass through the digestive system. Unless the marble is unusually large or the kid is unusually small there will be no problem.

Answer 3

I dont think the marble could be moved upward by peristalysis into the large intestine.... Look at the digestive track .

Answer 4

yes he can it will come out my pa in law has a glass eye and one of his friends ask to see to try to play a joke on my pa in law and he put it in his mouth and swallowed it by accident well it took a few days but it eventually came out of u know where so yes the marble will come back out but i suggest if you have not already swallowed it don't do it.

Answer 5

He won't likely digest it and it may actually just sit in his stomach. Here is a bizarre but true article that was posted on CNN about a guy that swallowed many objects over the course of many years. These objects collectively weighed as much as a bowling ball. i know that a marble doesn't weigh as much as a bowling ball, so it probably won't have any longterm side effects if it stays in there. Good luck :)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/02/18/coin.eater.ap/index.html

CNN

Hundreds of coins found in patient's belly
Wednesday, February 18, 2004 Posted: 5:11 PM EST (2211 GMT)



An X-ray shows the patient's stomach filled with coins, necklaces and needles.

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BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- French doctors were taken aback when they discovered the reason for a patient's sore, swollen belly: He had swallowed around 350 coins -- $650 worth -- along with assorted necklaces and needles.

The 62-year-old man came to the emergency room of Cholet General Hospital in western France in 2002. He had a history of major psychiatric illness, was suffering from stomach pain, and could not eat or move his bowels.

His family warned doctors that he sometimes swallowed coins, and a few had been removed from his stomach in past hospital visits.

Still, doctors were awed when they took an X-ray. They discovered an enormous opaque mass in his stomach that turned out to weigh 12 pounds -- as much as some bowling balls. It was so heavy it had forced his stomach down between his hips.

Five days after his arrival, doctors cut him open and removed his badly damaged stomach with its contents. He died 12 days later from complications.

One of his doctors, intensive care specialist Dr. Bruno Francois, said the patient had swallowed the coins -- both French currency and later euros -- over about a decade. His family tried to keep coins and jewelry away from him.

"When he was invited and came in some homes, he liked to steal coins and eat them," Francois said.

The case history of the French patient, whose name was withheld, was reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

The patient's rare condition is called pica, a compulsion to eat things not normally consumed as food. Its name comes from the Latin word for magpie, a bird thought to eat just about anything.

Pica can take the form of eating dirt, ashes, chalk, hair, soap, toothbrushes, burned matches and many other things. Francois once treated a patient who ate forks. Most such objects are small enough to pass on their own, but some must be removed by doctors.

The condition is perhaps best known in children and pregnant women but is also sometimes linked to psychiatric illness.

A few details of the Frenchman's case were presented January 1 along with the X-ray -- but no explanation of the stomach mass -- as a challenge to New England Journal of Medicine readers in a fixture called "A Medical Mystery."

Dr. Lindsey Baden, an editor at the journal, reported that 666 readers in 73 countries -- mostly doctors or doctors-in-training -- contacted the journal to try to solve the mystery. Almost 90 percent settled on diagnoses consistent with pica, but only 8 percent correctly identified coins.

"This case serves as a reminder of important factors that should be considered in the care of patients who are mentally impaired," Baden wrote.

Answer 6

yes it will be painful to come out but it will be in the toilet. Why would a 17 year swallow one anyways???

Answer 7

What were you doing to swallow a glass marble? ..or perhaps it's best that I better not ask..!

Answer 8

No digestion will takes place

Answer 9

you may once you have a bowel movement but you should go to the dr to make sure its not lodged any place that could cause harm

Answer 10

Good thing it actually WENT DOWN. I'd be happier about the fact that he's still alive.