Recently a young woman called our office for an emergency. She was eating her home-made chili when she noticed something hard as she was chewing. She was concerned that she might have broken either a tooth or part of a filling. She could not tell where it came from as she had no pain, nor did she feel anything in her that mouth was either sharp or missing. Our front desk person advised her to bring in the piece if she had it and scheduled her for an emergency appointment that day.
When she came in we examined her mouth and found nothing out of the ordinary and once she showed us the piece, we realized what it was. It appeared to have been a bone sliver from the ground beef she had used to make the chili. The photo you see is the actual large piece. She was sent home reassured that her mouth was fine and lucky that she did not break anything in her mouth on hitting this foreign body. She was also extremely fortunate not to have swallowed this large piece of bone as it could have gotten stuck in her esophagus or gastrointestinal tract and caused damage.
Moral of the story: Always look before you eat…..