A woman was diagnosed with Crohn's disease after experiencing all the symptoms but six years later she found out the truth.
It turned out that she had swallowed a sachet of Heinz ketchup and it was this that was mimicking the symptoms of Crohn's disease.
It was doctors at Wexham Park Hospital in Slough who diagnosed the 41-year-old patient of the disease.
According to the British Medical Journal (BMJ) the disease causes inflammation of the lining of the digestive system. The patients symtons were getting worse over time and she was admitted to hospital numerous times with severe pain.
Eventually doctors decided to remove part of her colon and it was during this surgery then an unexpected discovery was made.
The surgeons found an inflammatory mass at the end of her small intestine containing two pieces of plastic packaging with the word 'Heinz' in the wall of her small intestine.
Once the sachet was removed, her symptoms disappeared almost instantly and she no longer showed any signs of Crohn's disease in her follow-up appointments.
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One of the strangest things was that the woman said she had no recollection of eating the plastic sachet of sauce in the first place!
The BMJ said this is the first report of a rare case of a synthetic plastic packaging causing a perforation and mimicking Crohn's disease. It added that in over 80% of cases, any foreign bodies would usually pass through the body spontaneously, with only 1% requiring surgery.
Unfortunately for this she woman was the 1% but at least she's better now.
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