Put Away That Thread!
Soot is a friendly, loving kitty that ate a piece of thread. Read about his amazing surgery below.
Soot’s owner had a quick sewing repair to do. When finished she neglected to put her sewing things away. Soot, a seven month old cat, found the thread and decided it was a fascinating play thing. He dragged the thread around, biting and kicking at it, until finally, unbeknownst to his owner, Soot swallowed it.
The thread quickly became wrapped under the base of the tongue while the rest was swallowed and soon became what is known in veterinary genre as a linear foreign body. Once in the stomach, normal gastrointestinal contractions known as peristalsis caused the thread to pass on down into the intestines. This fine piece of thread continued to make its way to the end of the small intestine and then “ran out of rope”. With one end trapped under the tongue and the other end just this side of the colon, the intestines continued their normal contractions causing the small intestines to accordion pleat upon the thread.
Once this process had started it was obvious that something was wrong with Soot. He became very lethargic, stopped eating and then started vomiting. Whenever a cat with a history of vomiting is brought into our hospital part of the physical exam involves a peek under the tongue. Once the diagnosis was made we knew we had to take him to surgery. Surgery involves opening up the abdomen and assessing things: where does the thread end and how much damage has it done? You see, when the intestines contract and accordion pleat on a fine piece of thread, the thread eventually begins to cut through the intestines, resulting in leakage of intestinal contents and subsequent peritonitis. Well, with Soot we found the thread had traveled all the way to the junction of the small and large intestines causing about three feet of small intestines to bunch up. The thread under the tongue was cut and then multiple incisions were made in the small intestines (a procedure known as an enterotomy) removing various lengths of thread. The surgeon has to be very careful not to pull too hard on any one section of thread and to only pull out small sections at a time as to not cause the thread to dig through the already fragile intestines. With Soot, the thread was successfully removed but in the process it was determined that an approximately one foot section of small intestine had multiple areas of unhealthy tissue where the thread had cut through or was just about to break open. It was determined that an intestinal anastomosis was needed. This is where a section of bowel is removed and the two ends sewn back together.
In the end Soot had three enterotomies to remove multiple sections of thread, several areas of thread-cut intestines sutured and an intestinal anastomosis. Wow! After completing these procedures the abdomen was thoroughly flushed to control contaminations from spillage of intestinal contents and the abdomen closed. IV fluid, analgesic and antibiotic therapy were continued for several days and Soot recovered uneventfully. In fact he was feeling 90% better the next day; rubbing up against his cage for meowing for attention. As Soot’s owners could not afford this extensive care he was turned over to the Hope for Life Animal Rescue who took over financial responsibility.
Soot is having surgery and this photo demonstrates the “accordion pleating” created by a linear foreign body such as the piece of thread that Soot swallowed. The arrow points to the thread being removed through the initial enterotomy site.
One of several intestinal incisons (enterotomy) being closed after a length of thread was removed.
This image shows the intestinal anastomosis site being closed. In this procedure a foot of unhealthy gut has been removed and the two ends of intestine are being sutured back together.
