Needles Embedded In The Body

[hokum6]

Source
Link is dead. The MIA story (quoted in its entirety below) can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/2006010...ntinent_May1179.xml&section=subcontinent&col=

The cynical voice inside my head says that she's putting them there herself as a way of getting attention.

Surgeons extract 100 needles from body of a girl

LAHORE — Have you ever heard of needles in the body of a young girl?

Saima Haneef of Khangah Dogran in Punjab is experiencing the painful phenomenon and her doctors are unable to offer any medical reason for this.

The doctors have recovered at least 100 needles from her body through surgery during the past five months.

The process started with an abscess on her toe. Unable to bear the severe pain, she went to the doctor, who operated upon her abscess, extracting a needle. The patient became normal after the surgery.

However, it became a regular feature after some time. She felt pain in various parts of her body and doctors took out needles every time she was operated upon. Needles were recovered from her forehead, chin, back and arms.

Doctors and even ‘black magician’ have failed to diagnose the reasons or stop the painful process.

Dr Masood Shamim, who treats her, says medical science has no answer to the mysterious disease.

Saima’s father, a teacher, tried his best to conceal the fact to save the future of his daughter, who is of marriageable age.
He died of a heart attack recently, apperently because he could not bear the mental pressure.

 

[rynner2]

Over four years later, this story:

Chinese woman's 'needle ordeal'

Doctors in China have discovered 26 sewing needles embedded in the body of a 31-year-old woman.
They think they were inserted into Luo Cuifen's body when she was a baby by grandparents upset she was not a boy.

Some of these needles have penetrated vital organs, such as the lungs, liver and kidneys. One has even broken into three pieces in the woman's brain.

The needles were discovered only when Ms Luo went to hospital complaining of blood in her urine.

She was given a routine X-ray, which revealed the needles. Up until then she had been in good health.

Operations needed

A team of 23 doctors, including five from the United States and Canada, are debating how best to remove the needles at the Richland International Hospital in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province.

Xu Mei, the chief doctor at the hospital, told the BBC that removing the needles would be a long, complicated procedure requiring several operations.

The first of those is expected to take place next week when seven needles will be removed.

The hospital is doing the first operation, which will cost 170,000 yuan ($22,500, £11,200), for free.

But Ms Luo, from rural Songming County in Yunnan Province, will have to raise money to fund the other operations.

Doctors believe the needles were inserted into the woman when she was just a few days old by her grandparents, whom they believe were disappointed that she was not a boy.

But there is no way to confirm this theory, as the grandparents are now dead.

In many rural areas boys were - and still are - valued more highly than girls. One reason is that they can carry on the family name.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-p ... 983435.stm