The toothpick-tale - Take your patient seriously: a decade of pain and immobilization caused by an unrecognized toothpick!

We report here about a 26-year-old female patient with a 10-year-long saga of pain caused by a toothpick that had pierced through the skin and lodged in her foot but had defied detection for this long period of time. In our department the patient underwent surgery under general anesthesia to remove the foreign body. A 3.7 cm long fragment of a toothpick was extracted. Now the patient is absolutely pain-free and again fully mobile. We tend to over-rely on blood parameters and radiology findings. Especially pain is sometimes not taken seriously enough. Despite the stressful daily routine, listening to the patient and performing a proper clinical examination is core of medical work.