South Korean Woman's Knee Found Filled With Gold Needles [VIDEOS]

(Video Credit: YouTube/Prakash Vereker)

Hundreds of gold needles were discovered inside the knee of a 65-year-old South Korean woman who had been complaining about osteoarthritis.

Livescience.com reported the patient was previously discovered to have been suffering from a condition where the bones and cartilage found in the joints are degrading causing much pain. The South Korean resorted to acupuncture when pain relievers did not work anymore. Her condition was recorded by doctors in a New England Journal of Medicine.

However, during her treatment, the gold needles commonly used in acupuncture were left inside her knee's tissues to trigger maintained stimulation. The report was listed in the 14 Oddest Medical Case Reports. Another doctor who was not involved in the patient's case mentioned that to leave any kind of object inside a human's body is never recommended.

Dr. Ali Guermazi of the Boston University reiterated that any foreign object left inside can cause inflammation and even worse, infection. This does not exclude the gold needles.

"The human body wants to get rid of the foreign object. It starts with some mechanism of defense, for example, inflammation and forming [fibrous tissue] around the object," Dr. Guermazi added.

With needles or any other foreign item stuck inside the body, doctors may find it hard too to read the X-ray. In the case of the 65-year-old patient, the needles led more challenges, especially since the needles can damage any artery each time the body moves.

Acupuncture is a popular alternative medical practice that uses needles to stick into particular points of the body to relieve pain or even treat some diseases. It is a common thing, especially in Asian countries to go through this treatment, sometimes using sterile gold threads to cure arthritis.

There are about 3.1 million adults and 150,000 kids in the U.S. who believe in the acupuncture treatment, as recorded in 2007 by a survey made by the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Healio Web site also noted that acupuncture needles are also effective when teamed with physical therapy made up of exercises to treat patients suffering from knee osteoarthritis.