Photos reveal where elderly woman’s missing dentures ended up

An elderly Texas woman went to the hospital thinking she misplaced her dentures — only to learn she swallowed them during dinner and they were still in her stomach.

The woman, an 88-year-old who suffers from dementia, lost the bottom set of her dentures while she was eating dinner, according to Fox News.

Though she was not suffering any pain or discomfort, her son decided to take her to the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

There, the woman continued to insist she felt fine and was swallowing without trouble, but doctors decided to perform an endoscopy to see whether the dentures were inside her.

Images from the internal camera very clearly showed the dentures resting inside her stomach.

A scan of her torso also showed the arc of the dentures standing out starkly against her skeletal structure.

Doctors inserted long forceps down the woman’s throat and after several attempts were able to extract the dentures.

The procedure lasted about two hours, according to Jam Press, and the woman was unhurt and able to return home the next day.

“Foreign body ingestion is an under-recognized hazard in adults, especially in the elderly where it may lead to significant morbidity and even mortality,” experts at the hospital wrote in a study about the incident, according to Fox News.

The study noted that the woman’s dementia likely contributed to her being able to swallow the dentures without experiencing or recalling any pain.

“Dentures are actually one of the most commonly ingested items in adults. Others include bones, chicken or fish, and jewelry,” doctors wrote.