A woman lived with a plastic pill packet in her throat for 17 days without realising, according to a medical journal.

The patient who has not been named, swallowed the packet of the painkiller Tramadol in the middle of the night last November.

The woman from Northern Ireland, who is in her 40s, had to make four separate hospital visits over a three week period before doctors found the packet.

"I had no idea I swallowed this. It was a very frightening three weeks and I couldn't believe when I saw the picture," she said.

She added that the morning after she swallowed the packet she felt discomfort and went to the emergency department.

The pill packet did not show up in X-rays and the woman was described as "fit and well" by doctors, according to a report in the BMJ Case Reports.

Doctors told her to come back if there was no improvement and the woman was in hospital three days later.

She spent two nights in hospital where she was treated with steroids and painkillers until her symptoms improved and was then discharged.

Five days later she returned to hospital to have a special X-ray that focuses on the back of the mouth and throat but the results were determined to be normal.

On her fourth visit to Craigavon Area Hospital in Co Armagh and the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast doctors performed a camera test and finally pinpointed the issue.

Images taken showed the pill packet lodged in the woman’s throat and it was safely removed 17 days after ingestion.

David McCrory who wrote about the case, said: “She had swallowed her Tramadol tablets whole in the original foil packet which was lodged in the upper oesophagus.”

Agencies contributed to this report