Sometimes animals can come into the surgery with strange symptoms, and we discover things that we did not expect. This happened when Finley came into the practice after he started vomiting and retching at home. He had been happily enjoying himself out on a walk and then playing with one of his toys, when the symptoms started.

He presented to Sarah, who saw that whilst he was generally in good health, he had a sensitivity around his throat and retched every so often, especially when we examined his throat. He was sick once and was bringing up white phlegm when he was coughing. This suggested that there was some sort of foreign body in the upper areas of his respiratory system. However, his owner had been with him the entire time and had not seen him pick up or eat anything. We decided to admit him so we could investigate further and take some x-rays, to try to see if there was anything in his throat that shouldn’t be there.

We put Finley under general anaesthetic so we could thoroughly examine the back of his throat. The only thing that was seen out of the ordinary was a slightly red and sore looking area at the back of his throat. No signs of any foreign body, so we proceeded to take some x-rays. We could see a very thin straight line on the x-rays in the region of his larynx. We took a closer look and decided that it could only be a sewing needle! It had punctured the back of the throat and gone into the tissues, nowhere to be seen.

We used the landmarks visible on the x-ray, for example, the hyoid cartilages, and worked out where the needle was lying. We then felt through the mouth and found it, using the forceps to remove the needle that still had thread attached. This was very fortunate as it meant that we didn’t have to make any extra incisions into the back of the throat to try to find it. After the successful removal of his poor choice in a snack, Finley came round from his aesthetic and went home, where he made a full recovery with no further issues and is back to his normal cheeky self!