Doctors find “gold mine” in woman’s knees

December 20, 2025 by Nadia

Foreign invaders

He also warned that embedded needles can complicate X-ray readings. “The needles may obscure some of the anatomy,” Guermazi said in 2013.

The body also doesn’t always take kindly to foreign invaders, and the reaction can fall under foreign body reaction or chronic inflammatory response.

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

Even more concerning, needles left in the body can make future medical imaging dangerous. “The patient can’t go into an MRI because needles left in the body may move, and damage an artery,” Guermazi added.

Evidence that acupuncture actually treats medical conditions is limited. Yet it remains a popular option for painful joints, especially in some Asian countries where inserting tiny pieces of sterile gold thread around a joint is a common arthritis treatment.

In the U.S., acupuncture is also widely used — an estimated 3.1 million adults and 150,000 children received the treatment in 2007, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

For this woman, her gold-laden knees are a stark reminder that sometimes, alternative medicine can leave more than just a mark — it can leave a literal treasure trove.