A rubber band has become embedded in a girl's flesh, requiring surgery, after she left it on her arm for too long.
The 4-year-old was taken to the doctors after her grandparents noticed a massive, unusual ring around her arm, The Metro reports. The mark, just below her elbow, was initially diagnosed as just an infection or an allergy.
After the "infection" grew worse, the parents of the girl took her to the hospital to have it examined properly. A scan revealed that the girl, known only by her nickname Le Le, had a foreign object deep in her arm. The elastic band had been enveloped after it had dug into her arm, with layers of skin and flesh forming over the top of it.
Eventually, her flesh covered it completely.
"Thin strings and elastic bands can easily be concealed in the flaps of the child’s skin," Doctor Ye Wensong told The Metro. He went on to explain that sometimes children in China wear thin red strings or bands around their arms for good luck. It appears Le Le did not tell her grandparents, who she lives with, when the rubber band she wore dug into her arm, and it went unnoticed for some time.
Surgeons at the Zhejiang University School of Medicine in Hangzhou removed the band, and the girl is recovering well from the procedure.
The story has made a lot of people squirm after it was spread around social media all over the world.
A lot of people are grossed out, and even calling for them to be banned.
Foreign objects can easily become embedded in your flesh if you don't attend to the situation quickly. More common examples include bits of gravel becoming stuck underneath your skin after falling over.
Ingrowing toenails, a common condition, are another similar example. The toenail pierces the flesh at the end of the toe, and often the flesh begins to grow over it, becoming swollen as it does so.
However, don't panic and ban your child from wearing bands just yet. Just keep an eye on their arms if a whole bunch of your elastic bands suddenly go missing.
