A four-year-old boy from Nigeria, who had been complaining of intense pain, had swallowed a magnetic bracelet that had to be surgically removed.

According to an alarming case study published in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery in its February 2023 issue – to be released next month – the boy had swallowed multiple magnetic beads and had been experiencing pain for two days before they were removed.

The doctors state that the child “presented with features initially mimicking acute appendicitis and later intestinal obstruction. He initially had an open appendicectomy which did not improve the clinical condition”.

They report that “after further evaluation, he later had laparotomy with the retrieval of ingested beads and repair of enteric perforations”.

The doctors – Muslimat A Alada, Michael E Aghahowa, Abdulrasheed A Nasir, and Kenneth O Amaechi who reported the case – said that “accidental ingestion of magnetic beads is a common problem among children worldwide” and that “despite its increasing prevalence, there is usually inaccurate diagnosis and management, which often results in severe morbidity in patients”.

Most reported cases are seen in children between the ages of 1 and 17 years, the journal said.

The parents of the boy, meanwhile, had no idea that the boy had ingested a foreign body. The case study noted that “it is possible that the metallic taste of the magnetic beads motivated the child to continue to explore them in his mouth and subsequently swallowed more even though the parents denied the source of the beads and not one of their household items”.

In a separate incident from 2020, a five-year-old in China also swallowed 123 magnetic beads which doctors later removed from his body.