In April this year, a 64-year-old woman from Taiwan had her night’s sleep disturbed as a result of mysterious ear complaints.
The case is described in the medical journal The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), where it emerges that the woman had struggled for four days before she saw a doctor.
– On the first day, she had woken up with a feeling that something was crawling inside her ear. Subsequent knocking, clicking sounds and rustling had led to insomnia, they write.
More surprises
When the doctors examined her ear, they found a small spider.
A woman with hypertension presented to the clinic with a 4-day history of abnormal sounds in her ear. On examination, a small spider was seen moving within the external auditory canal of the left ear. The molted exoskeleton of the spider was also present. https://t.co/dye2sbbiL9 pic.twitter.com/SfeNBBGQS8
— NEJM (@NEJM) October 25, 2023
And that wasn’t the only surprise: Along with the living spider, they also found its old skin.
The little creature had changed him in the 64-year-old’s ear.
Tengchin Wang, doctor and head of the ear-nose-throat department at the Tainan Municipal Hospital in Taiwan, tells NBC News that this was new, even to him.
Was sucked out
Wang has come across many cases where insects have lodged in people’s ears, but he has never witnessed them changing him in there.
Ladybug chaos: – Thousands
He also states that they used a tube to suck out both the spider and the old skin.
The 64-year-old should not have felt pain, as the spider was very small. They estimate that it was around two to three millimeters long.
When the spider was out, all symptoms also ceased.
– Unbearable
David Kasle, an otolaryngologist from Florida, tells NBC that this case is both unusual and disturbing.
He has no connection to the study itself, but nevertheless offers some advice on how you can rule out that ear problems are caused by an insect.
– There is an extremely sensitive, thin layer of skin that lines the ear canal – called the external auditory canal. Because of its sensitivity, you’re sure to notice something crawling in there. It is a tickling feeling that is almost unbearable, he says.
If you are unlucky and get an insect in the ear canal, it can according to Norwegian Health Informatics (NHI) can be inactivated by dripping a few drops of cooking oil into the ear canal. Later it can be rinsed or retrieved with a suitable instrument.
You should not try to remove foreign objects that are sitting deep in the ear canal yourself, as this can cause them to be pushed further in and possibly damage the eardrum. Then a doctor should be consulted.
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2023-10-26 15:22:18
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