You will never use toothpick after reading this....

A man who began suffering chest pains was shocked to discover he had a whole toothpick lodged inside his heart.

Horacio Rodriguez, 42, believes he must have swallowed the wooden stick earlier in the year when he had 'eaten a lot of appetisers'. 

He fell ill with a fever in January and doctors said he had a heart infection and put him on antibiotics.. Read more

But after he began losing weight, coughing up blood and suffering chest pains, he sought a second opinion, the Mirror reports.

In hospital, scans revealed an object inside his heart, and surgeons at Hospital Fernandez in Buenos Aires, Argentina, decided to operate to remove it.

They thought it might be a catheter which had been inserted when Mr Rodriguez had a blood transfusion as a teenager.

However, during a seven hour operation, they were stunned to find a whole toothpick inside the organ.

Fernando Cichero, the hospital's heart specialist, told the Mirror the discovery was 'incredible'.

First, doctors took the blood out of Mr Rodriguez's heart and then saw 'clearly' that the blockage was being caused by a toothpick, he said. 

The medics were incredulous, and discussed the case with colleagues in Argentina and other countries, none of whom had heard of anything like it.

'I’m sure nothing like it is ever going to happen to me again,' Mr Cichero said. 

When Mr Rodriguez was told what had been stuck inside him, he began to laugh and admitted he had eaten a lot of appetisers at the end of last year.

He said: 'I've no idea when I swallowed the toothpick but can only assume it was during some sort of celebration.'

He said he had been in and out of hospital for around six months as they didn't know what was wrong.

He was suffering a stabbing pain in his chest, but it was only after several ultrasound scans that a specialist noticed something odd in his heart and decided to operate.

Now, he has been told there is no lasting damage to his heart and he can be back home by next week.

Doctors have told him to rest and not to drive a car or motorbike for two months.

They also warned him to avoid anything that involves toothpicks.

'Perhaps the next time I eat salami or cheese I'll make sure they've got little flags attached to them so I can see them,' Mr Rodriguez told the Mirror.

Experts believe the toothpick must have entered into his heart through his oesophagus, or through the superior vena cava, a large vein carrying deoxygenated blood from the head, arms, and upper body into the heart.

Accidentally swallowing a toothpick – or any foreign object – can cause serious health problems, including blood poisoning, bowel perforation and liver abscess, warned doctors raising the issue in the medical journal BMJ case reports.

Toothpicks, pins, nails or small bones that end up in the gut may not show up on conventional X-rays and often create vague symptoms, making detection difficult, they said.

Moreover, patients often do not remember the incident.

In 2012 journal warned they had received more than 4,000 reports of accidental swallowings.