What to Do When a Fish Bone Gets Stuck in Your Throat

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Chapters

0:00 Introduction
0:47 Coughing
0:58 Olive oil
1:07 Bread and water
1:25 Soda
1:39 Marshmallows
1:54 Vinegar

Throat & Voice
Swallowed a fish bone? This is how it is removed by an ENT Specialist February 3, 2020
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With Chinese New Year just around the corner and with fish being an auspicious food, many Singaporeans will be having more fish meals in the coming weeks. However, Dr Gan, an ENT Specialist in Singapore, warned that one better be extra careful when enjoying one of the fish meals!

Dr Gan was recently called to see a patient, Mr A, around midnight at the Accident & Emergency (A&E) at Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital. The patient was a 56 year old Chinese gentleman who had just accidentally swallowed a fish bone while enjoying his fish-head curry supper. He subsequently complained of piercing pain in his throat which was worse on swallowing.

On examination, a nasoendoscopy (scope through the nose and down to the back of the throat) showed a curvilinear fish bone embedded at the back of his left tongue (near the region of his voicebox). The endoscope has a working channel that allows Dr Gan to insert a grasping forceps. This enables the bone to be extracted safely under direct vision. The process took about a minute and his pain resolved immediately.

Fish bone embedded

Swallowed fish bone

Swallowed fish bone is one of the most common ENT emergencies seen in Singapore. The most common sites for a fish bone to get stuck in the throat are the tonsils (2 oval-shaped glands at the back of your throat), back of the tongue (in areas known as base of tongue and valleculae) and the food pipe (known as esophagus).

While most fish bones stuck in the throat region can be removed with a pair of forceps in the clinic, those that are stuck in the food pipe are much more difficult to get to and will have to be removed under general anaesthesia (with patient asleep). Fish bone in the food pipe are removed by passing a rigid scope (A long lighted tube) down the food pipe. The visualized fish bone can then be removed with and a grasping forceps that is passed through the rigid scope. Most swallowed fish bones can be removed without any complications. However, a swallowed fish bone that has been left embedded in the throat or food pipe for a prolonged period of time has a risk of infection and migration of the fish bone into deeper structures in the neck. Migrated fish bone causing injury to one of the large blood vessel in the neck resulting severe bleeding and death has happened before in Singapore. Hence, fish bones stuck in the throat or food pipe are serious conditions that warrants urgent intervention!

[Slap_Poggr]

Bro I'm fucking choking right now and YouTube gives me a 30-seconds ads 💀

[pushpashekar]

It really worked for me. I drank 2 tsp olive oil and half a slice of bread, soaked in the water and gulped it. The bone went down. Thank you so much.

[saptarshifordesign]

Youtube tried to kill me showing an ad before running this emergency procedure video! Luckily the ad was skippable. Your bread and water tip worked for me. Thank you so much!

[Lilkeiths]

THANK YOU I WAS PLANNING TO GO TO THE DOCTOR AND BE ABSENT FOR SCHOOL TOMMOROW. TOMMOROW IS MY LONGTEST TYSM

[ganapathiganny]

I had a fish bone in my throat for the past 14 hours... I tried bread it didn't work for me.... I tried coughing fir a couple of minutes with my mouth wide open.. It came out... Thank you 👍

[abdurrehman_]

Hey guys, I had a large bone stuck in my throat. I saw almost all the videos and tried everything that is eating large Banana bites, drinking vinegar, etc but nothing seemed to work for me. The next day it really started to irritate and hurt me. In this situation the best option is to go to the nearest doctor. He took 5 seconds to take it out with a prong which didn't even hurt. The doctor also told me that all these things usually don't work for larger bones. I hope this helps.


This is especially for the ones who have larger bones stuck really down the throat. Taking medical help is the easiest way. I hope everyone recovers soon.

[hteacave]

its in my throat right now. nothing works.

[George.Coleman]

Option A
1. Open mouth wide and hold tongue down with an icecream stick
2. Have someone look and use torchlight to locate fishbone
3. If they can see it get them to wear gloves and use long metal tweezers (preferably curved tip) to grab it out

Option B
1. Gargle a warm milk free drink
2. With the information about how its stuck, use gloves and try to use your fingers to unlodge

Option C
Hospital

[zuhalcaliskan]

I can't thank you enough.. The bread and water helped me right now!!

[kenpe]

Stay calm! That's the first tip. I also had a fish bone stuck yesterday evening and I drank hot tea with honey but still was stuck but I felt that heat from the tea made the bone softer/weaker, it was a thin fish bone though. So I went to sleep still with the bone still stuck but later I woke up after sleeping 8 hours and it was gone after sleeping. So drinking something hot, drinking vinegar will weaken and soften the bone. Probably best to do that first before the other methods in this video.

[nirmalmaharjan]

Bread just work right now! Awesome information thanks a lot.

[dayakanthi]

Vinagar is truly correct. Thank you so much. It really works

[akinthompson]

Thank you for helping me Doc. I had a large piece of fishbone stuck in my throat for about 4 hours. The bread dipped in water didn't force it down but choked me enough to force a strong cough and bring out the fishbone

[hanlin]

This video saved me today! Thanks! The olive oil + bread worked for me

[ahsanhabib]

Thanks to Youtube for existing. I got rid off a large bone just by coughing.

[definitelynot]

This just happened to me too. It bothers a lot. Thankfully I got rid of the fish bone. I tried every method this video showed but none of them couldn't work that well. I was able to remove the bone by trying to pick it out of my mouth; the bone eventually got unstuck and it went down my throat. If you wanna know where it got stuck, I felt the bone getting blocked at the top of the throat.

[sukantpatnaik]

Thanks Sir..I had cold gingerale & cough it’s working for me many many thanks god bless you 🙏🍀

[baburamlimbu]

Right now I'm suffering from this problem. Thanks for your information Doc. I'll try it. Let's see what happens

[WhoIsSheAnyway]

This helped me immediately! 😭 I coughed for sometime and the bone was gone. Thank you so much!

[blackchicken]

sometimes i wonder how cats just eat fish bones casually