- Yeah, that would've “bugged” me, too.
Now we have heard people sticking things in their ears (yes, mostly small children), but what would you do if you had stuff LIVING in your ear?
Mr. Lv And His Uninvited Guests
A 24-year-old man from China was suffering an earache and decided to go to the doctor. He wasn’t expecting to be told his ear was home to over a dozen cockroaches. He went to a hospital in Guangdong Province, in Southeast China, reported NYPost.com. There Mr. Lv told his doctor he was experiencing sharp pains in his right ear. Dr. Zhong Yijin, an ENT (ears, nose and throat specialist) at Sanhe Hospital who treated Mr. Lv. Dr. Yijin said “He said his ear hurt a lot like something was scratching or crawling inside. It caused a lot of discomforts,” according to Newsweek.com.
The Examination
Mr. Lv said that a member of his family had previously shone a light inside his ear, and found a large bug inside. When Dr. Yijin examined Mr. Lv’s ear canal, he found an adult German cockroach surrounded by her newly born. Dr. Yijin said he found more than ten young in Mr. Lv’s ear. “They were actually running around.”
Why Did They Choose His Ear?
Mr. Lv told the doctors that he would leave food by his bed at night. Dr. Jiang Tengxiang, deputy head of ENT at the hospital, said that this likely attracted the bugs. The adult most likely viewed Mr. Lv’s ear as an incubation chamber and crawled inside. The hospital used tweezers to remove the cockroaches. Sanhe Hospital said that despite his ordeal, Mr. Lv was left with minor injuries to his ear. The doctors sent him home with some antibiotics, but that was it.
Worried This’ll Happen To You?
Dr. Tengxiang advises practicing good hygiene, as well as disinfecting drains and sewers and fitting mosquito nets over windows to prevent cockroaches from entering your home. “That’ll stop the insects from flying or crawling into your noses and ears,” said Dr. Tengxiang.
This Isn’t A First…
Last year, a Florida woman had a similar experience she detailed on Self.com. Katie Holly and her husband bought a new house and found cockroaches on the property. They weren’t surprised, and just called in exterminators. One night she ‘shot up out of bed, disoriented.’ “I could feel that my ears were not right. I grabbed a cotton swab and gently inserted it into my ear to see what was up and I felt something move,” she wrote.
When She Pulled Out The Swab, She Was Scared To See Legs Stuck To It
“LEGS. Legs that could only belong to an adventurous palmetto bug exploring my ear canal.” Mrs. Holly had her husband look inside her ear and there was a cockroach inside. He tried to pull it out with tweezers by the thickest part of its body, but only managed to grab hold of two legs. “It was awful feeling, one that was not necessarily painful, but psychologically torturous,” Mrs. Holly wrote. A doctor at her local hospital was able to remove the roach. “Now I am roach-free and feeling better. I do think that my ear will heal faster than my psyche,” she said.