Woman eats dozens of forks and spoons

A woman complaining of stomach pains left doctors stunned after they operated on her and discovered she had scoffed 78 forks and spoons.

The find came after 52-year-old estate agent secretary Margaret Daalmans was admitted to a hospital in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Doctors had to remove dozens of forks and spoons from her stomach one by one.

Officials revealed it wasn’t the first time that Margaret had been treated for eating cutlery. She is said to be responding well to therapy for a ‘borderline personality disorder’ in order to cure her of her bizarre appetite.

A surgeon said:’ She seems to have been suffering from sort of obsession and every time she would sit down for a meal, she would ignore the food and eat the cutlery.’’

Margaret told medics: I don’t know why, but I felt an urge to eat the silverware. I could not help myself.

A spokesman for the hospital said that Margaret had made a full recovery from her operation and was responding well to therapy for her obsession.’’

The photographs of her X-ray were taken 30 years ago but recently came to light when a Dutch medical magazine asked readers to send in bizarre medical tales. A doctor at a hospital in Sittard in the Netherlands sent in the tale of Ms Daalman.

Margaret never ate knives but couldn’t explain why.  Psychiatrists said hers case was not unique and that the urge to swallow foreign objects. sometimes referred to as pica, was a form of self harm. No one else has been known to have consumed so much silverware.

According to the article it is nearly impossible to prevent access to all potentially ingestible objects making the behaviour difficult to stop without psychiatric treatment.



Source - STV

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