A 12-year-old girl faces having a major surgery after she accidentally swallowed magnets, as children across the country take part in a TikTok challenge.
Lexi Miles was rushed to hospital after swallowing the magnetic balls on Wednesday, October 27, the Liverpool Echo reports.
Nearly a week later the magnets remain in her system, but have now moved through her body and into her bowel.
Lexi could now need major surgery to remove the balls – including having a portion of her bowel removed altogether.
She has denied taking part in a viral TikTok trend, which sees children place two magnetic balls on either side of their tongue or lip to create the illusion of a real piercing.
Her mum Kerry Miles says that although Lexi insists it was an accident, she feels parents need to be made aware of the dangers the magnets can pose.
Kerry, who lives in Haydock, Liverpool, said: “I didn’t know anything about the trend before this morning, it was my dad who had told me that there was this TikTok trend going viral.
“[Lexi] says she wasn’t doing that and she was just messing about with them in her mouth – but whatever had happened she accidentally swallowed the two of them.
“They’re so strong these little magnets though that they’ve clasped off her lip and then pinged to the back of her throat.”
Lexi told her mum she had accidentally swallowed the magnets at around 7.50pm on Wednesday and was rushed to Whiston Hospital where staff performed an x-ray.
After consultations, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital asked Lexi to come in the following morning for further consultation where they discovered the magnets had moved from her diaphragm to her rectum.
Kerry added: “On Thursday Alder Hey told me I had to keep checking on her and if she hadn’t passed them by Monday to contact them again which I did this morning.
“I took her back to Alder Hey today and they did another x-ray and found the magnets are in her bowels but they’re not ready to come out yet.”
Alder Hey informed Kerry that if the magnets do not naturally leave Lexi’s body before Wednesday, November 3, the schoolgirl will have to undergo a “serious surgery” that could see some of her bowel removed.
Kerry said: “Lexi asked what the operation was, thinking it was just going to be a camera through her bum, and they said no it would go in through her belly, possibly remove half of her bowel and she would have to wear a colostomy bag for a while.”
She added: “She’s lucky because the magnets are actually still attached together and in one piece. Now if they would have separated and one was in her stomach and one was in her bowel they could have joined again and caused so many issues.”
Kerry said she feels “sick to her stomach” at the thought of Lexi undergoing surgery.
The magnets are less than 6mm in diameter and can be easily swallowed.
Once ingested, they can become forged together in the intestines or bowels, squeezing the tissue and cutting off the blood supply.
Earlier this year, a 13-year-old girl from Rainhill had to be fed through tubes following a six hour operation after she copied a video she saw on TikTok.
Faye Elizabeth told the ECHO her daughter, who she asked to be left anonymous, had to have her appendix and part of her bowel removed in May after copying the video.
In the same month Mail Online reported that an 11-year-old boy had been left fighting for his life after also copying the TikTok “tongue piercing” game.
He is said to have swallowed five of the small magnetic balls and was left in a critical condition following an infection after two major surgeries.
A TikTok spokesperson said: “The safety of our community is our priority, and we do not allow content that encourages, promotes, or glorifies behaviour that might lead to injury.
“We continue to conduct additional proactive searches to detect content of this nature and while we have not yet found evidence that this is a trend, we will stay vigilant and take action when necessary.”