Heads Up Parents

I know there are a few parents here. This story is actually about my friend's little sisters' friend.

Little Magnets Causing Big Problems, Harming Teens (video)

FENTON, MO (KTVI-FOX2now.com) - An alert for parents. Some kids are turning to a potentially dangerous magnetic practice to try and get tongue rings. So far, at least one teen has been hospitalized. Kids are using small magnets for jewelry as an alternative to piercing their tongues.

But a 14 year old wound up in the hospital after she accidentally swallowed the magnets back on February 5th. Tuesday, she told her frightening story exclusively to Fox 2.

"It hurt a little bit and then it started really hurting. And then it started hurting like every time I stood up or something it hurt worse," said Makayla Roderman about she felt after she accidentally swallowed four small Neocube magnets.

Roderman says she got the magnets from a friend at Rockwood South Middle School in Fenton. The eighth grader told us she and other students wore the magnets as tongue rings. But it didnt take long for trouble to start for Makayla.

"I put them on my tongue and they slid to the back of my throat- tried coughing them out and it didnt work and they went farther down my throat so I had no choice but to swallow them," explained Makayla.

Makayla wound up spending four days at St. Johns Mercy Childrens Hospital. Doctors were able to get three of the four magnets out.

Physicians say magnets can do serious damage inside the body and can even kill you.

Dr. Donna Eckardt with St. Johns told us, "One magnet will be in one part of the bowel and another will be in another part of the bowel and they attract each other and they trap the tissue of the intestines together and cut off blood supply to that…The kids can get bleeding, they can get ulcerations, they can get perforations, they can get twisting or volvulous, they can get obstructions, it can be pretty dangerous."

Makaylas mom, Cynthia Nemeth, has a message about the magnets as jewelry.

"It's just put out there to be a fad. Its aesethics, they want to fit in. They want to be in with the in crowd and they know that theyre to young too have piercings so this seemed to be the safest replacement and its not," said Nemeth.

The principal at Rockwood South Middle, Linda Miller, did send letters home to parents warning about the magnets.

Linda told us, "Different things are going on, different fads come through so we try to stay on top of things. This was a new one. But we got the information out to parents as quickly as possible."

Neocubes website has a warning saying swallowing the magnets can be harmful or fatal. We tried to call Neocube Tuesday night for comment, but nobody returned our call.

Makayla is ok and back at school.

this is too bad, but i would see the message as
"parents, let your kids get real piercings"
***
but not every parent is as hip as me

As Hippie said just get real piercings

Talking about fashion accessories for kids have you seen the latest craze for babies?

Toupee's yes that's right toupee's.