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Topics: Health, Food and Drink
Joe Yates
A competitive eater got more than he bargained for after a seven-pound burger saw him hospitalized.
A healthy 30-year-old from Singapore ended up in the emergency room after taking on the monster burger - which he managed to demolish in just 30 minutes, and while he may have beaten the beast... it bit back hard.
Just so we're all on the same page, the average fast-food burger in the US clocks in at 0.75 pounds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Meaning the Singaporean ate the equivalent of a little over nine burgers, before visiting the emergency department with abdominal pain.
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The result of eating such a huge amount in such little time was that his stomach was so swollen it compressed his pancreas and bowels, causing acute pancreatitis and acute kidney injury.
After checking-in to hospital, it was recorded that the patient had vomited undigested food, and a clinical examination revealed that his abdomen was swollen - citing that it was 'tense and distended'.
However, the initial chest radiograph noted that there was no pneumoperitoneum - a condition where there is air in the abdominal cavity due to a perforated organ.
All that food was preventing him from passing gas or pooping, which of course is a key bodily function.
With no bowel movements, he was admitted to hospital where he stayed for five days before finally weathering the storm, when he was discharged.
According to the report, published in Gastroenterology aga (American Gastroenterological Association), the man underwent a computed tomography scan of the abdomen and pelvis which detailed the severity of his swollen belly.
It showed his stomach and part of his small intestine were 'grossly distended with food material', as well as an abrupt narrowing in another part of the small intestine.
Meanwhile, 'the pancreas was compressed' and the bowels were pushed down.
To aid the man's suffering, regular gastric lavages - i.e. stomach pumping, the evacuation of small volumes of liquid through a tube - were administered that were fed through his nose.
The journal explained how it was 'performed in an attempt to decompress the distended stomach', however despite the lavages, the patient’s symptoms persisted.
"Plans for an open gastrostomy to evacuate the undigested food particles were abandoned when the patient started to pass flatus [gas] and there was resolution of metabolic acidosis and elevated white counts," it read.
"Eventually, the patient managed to move his bowels and was discharged well 5 days later."