Pune Doctors Remove Pieces of Turmeric from 85-Year-Old Farmer’s Lungs

Doctors at DPU Super Speciality Hospital in Pune removed layers of turmeric pieces from an 85-year-old farmer’s lungs.

The farmer had been suffering from a chronic cough for the last three months. Afterward, it led to breathing difficulties. He visited numerous hospitals, but he could not find the right treatment for his condition. It was severely impacting his quality of life and he was not able to sleep at night due to his condition. The farmer was admitted to a local hospital and invested lakhs of rupees for his treatment. However, the doctors were unable to find the cause of his chronic cough. He visited Pune's DPU Super Speciality Hospital with an intractable cough that he had been suffering from.

The doctors at the DPU Super Speciality Hospital recommended a CT scan of the lungs and the results revealed that there was a presence of a foreign body in the farmer's lungs. Additionally, the doctors performed a bronchoscopy procedure. During the procedure, the doctors noticed that a foreign body had expanded and formed layers in the lungs of the farmer. The layers were about 2 cm long and 1 cm wide, making it hard to remove the foreign object.

However, the team of doctors using forceps and specialized instruments and under local anesthesia successfully removed the foreign object from the farmer's lungs. Initially, the doctors were not able to verify the type of the foreign body, but after cutting the foreign body they found that it had a yellowish color, and it showed a yellowish hue.

Dr. M. S. Barthwal, the Head of the Department of Pulmonary Medicine, who directed the team of doctors said that during the post-procedure interactions with the patient, the patient revealed that to reduce cough symptoms he tended to put a piece of turmeric root in his mouth before going to bed.

The doctor said that the piece of turmeric root must have accidentally entered the lungs during sleep and inadvertently lodged in his airway. After the treatment, the patient’s sustained fight with a painful cough stopped and after a few days of recovery, he was discharged from the hospital.

Dr. Barthwal also said that last year they also removed a clove stalk from the lungs of a patient who was keeping it in his mouth for relief of his intractable cough. The doctor said that keeping these objects such as turmeric pieces and clove stalks does not lead to improvement in cough but lands patients in serious condition.

(Input from various sources) 

(Rehash/Lavanya Beeraboina/MSM)