A guy came in because he thought a bug had crawled into his ear while he was sleeping and sure enough looking through the otoscope I saw the unmistakable hard backing of some beetle-like thi
ng.
Just seeing it made me feel a little repulsed. Blood, pus, poop, sweat, discharge, vomit whatever the usual healthcare stuff gives me no problem but I don’t like bugs. It’s not pathological or anything, it just kind of creeps me out to have a spider running up my arm or hear a roach crunching under my shoe.
I wanted that thing dead, for both the patient’s sake and mine, so I squirted some lidocaine into his ear. He said it wasn’t moving around so I stuck some alligator forceps into his ear canal and pulled out a nasty half-inch long creature that looked a lot like the one pictured.
Ugh. It was revolting but at the same time kind of exhilarating to get that thing out of there. Still, all things considered I’ll stick to pus.
June 17, 2008 at 8:29 am
So, did you get it before it found a nice warm waxy place to lay some eggs?
June 17, 2008 at 10:03 am
*shudder* One of my friends had an interesting “stuff” in the ear experience lately, thank goodness it wasn’t this, although his gave him the shudders (gave me a good laugh though – apparently the ER staff too): http://points.livejournal.com/45612.html
June 17, 2008 at 10:45 am
Roach in the ear. I have seen it about a half dozen times. Usually I kill them with mineral oil and the patient is relieved. Pulling the thing out in pieces is pretty disgusting though…
June 17, 2008 at 10:59 am
Oh, puke. I hate bugs.
June 17, 2008 at 1:39 pm
this is EXACTLY my worst nightmare! I saw it once in a movie with Claire Danes when she goes to Thailand and a bug crawled into her ear. Nightmares for weeks! Ok ok years. Glad you got it out. Yikes.
June 17, 2008 at 1:48 pm
that movie was brokedown palace.
nothing sucks more than someone bringing in their “pet” with them.
about a year ago, i had someone bring in the pinworms from their kid, asking what they were…..i almost gagged.
June 17, 2008 at 3:46 pm
One way to get a bug out of an ear is to wipe Vaseline onto the lens of a flashlight and shine it in the ear. If it’s the type of bug attracted to light, it will fly out and become stuck to the Vaseline.
June 17, 2008 at 5:33 pm
I think I’m going to throw up.
June 17, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Pretty horrible. I used to think that finding insects in the sheets of uncared for nursing home patients was pretty bad. Yuck. It’s a little humorous that it was a legit C/C though. Crazy people like to talk of things crawling in their ears a lot…maybe some of them were telling the truth.
June 17, 2008 at 9:27 pm
That is in my top 10 worst nightmares. Ugh.
June 17, 2008 at 9:27 pm
When I was 10 years old, my buddy and I were sleeping outdoors in the hot summer before air-conditioning was the norm, and as we walked the neighborhood streets looking for trouble, indeed I found it. A moth flew into my ear and was fluttering it’s wings. We ran home and of course no one believed it but my excruciating screaming convinced them to bring me to the emergency room at 2 am.
Once the doctor used his stethoscope he was convinced and after trying to flush it out with a syringe of water (that just pissed it off and made it flutter it’s wings even more-and I screaming even louder)he injected some lidocaine and I heard the sound of a death of a moth. He too used alligator forceps and I was in great relief!
Nick http://www.onlymoments.wordpress.com
June 17, 2008 at 11:07 pm
I was a camp counselor my first summer out of high school. We had a weekend “camping” excursion from the camp; it was so nice on Blueberry Ridge that night, that we skipped the tents and spread out our sleeping bags on the ridge.
At about 2am, the calmest, most collected kid of the bunch let out a shriek that would curdle your blood, and kept on yelling. I ran a mile down the mountain to an old age home, where the janitor let me use a phone to call the camp nurse. By the time we got back, a lightning bug much like the one in your photo had emerged from the kid’s ear.
Freaky, freaky freaky.
June 18, 2008 at 7:58 am
oh geez, and i thought this was just a silly urban legend!? (but coming from this blog, I’m pretty sure it’s not!)… that’s just gross… and scary. Better double check my bed tonight!
June 18, 2008 at 10:19 am
Eww, when I was about 7 I moved to Nova Scotia, where they had an infestation of earwigs. The local kids told me that they crawled in your ears and ate your brains. I don’t think that I slept a good nights sleep until the snow fell. Still one of my worst fears! Ewwwww….
June 18, 2008 at 11:35 am
I have had a bug in my ear, and it made me act like a crazy woman.
IJ was visiting my parents and woke up in the middle of the night, feeling like something was scratching and eating at my brain. So, I get up all freaked out, and run to my parent’s room, who are very old, and I’m screaming like a crazy idiot. Scared the hell out of my parents.
Everytime I turned the light on, the damn thing went wild. I was hitting the opposite side of my head trying to bump it out. My mom later told me she thought that I had gone ‘mad’.
Anyway, an hour later, a very rural ER doc got it out of my ear. It was some sort of tiny moth. My eardrum had a few scratches on it too. I will NEVER forget this. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone! lol
June 18, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Year ago when my kids were little, I was bathing my son when i noticed what looked to me like a spider stuck inside his ear. I didn’t take him to the ER but being the young mom I was, I called my parents in a panic. They came over and my Dad informed me it was a tick and it was imbedded in the ear. My dad lit a match then blew it out and laid it on top of the tick who then crawled out of my son’s ear. The entire thing was disgusting.
June 19, 2008 at 12:37 am
Ugh that’s gross. I remember back in the day an ant went inside my friend’s ear and he was panicking like crazy.
June 19, 2008 at 9:05 am
*shudder* I think I will be wearing earmuffs 24/7 now. Ugh… what a horrible thing to have happen.
June 19, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Takes me back to when I was a wee little one…shadowing my very first doctor considering a career in medicine. Same exact story. I was SO impressed. Oh, and grossed out.
(still wondering if I should have been an ER doc)
June 19, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Reason #383 to use earplugs while sleeping.
Seriously, that’s horrible.
June 19, 2008 at 8:08 pm
ok that’s gross but you got me hooked-
how does a bug that size get stuck in your ear canal? I Never thought the canal was that long!?
June 20, 2008 at 8:49 am
This happened to a friend of mine. It was her very first day in family medicine practice. (Seriously, she had been a resident the day before.) A patient came in with a bee in his ear. She later said to me, “I went to an Ivy League med school and residency. I learned about common diseases and zebras. But bees weren’t on the curriculum!”
I believe she used bug spray.
June 20, 2008 at 11:44 pm
I don’t think I would ever be the same after that.
June 22, 2008 at 10:55 am
it’s cool to me that the same thing we use to treat arrythmias can be used to kill bugs.
June 22, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Is anyone else thinking of “The Wrath of Khan”?
June 22, 2008 at 10:55 pm
ARGH, the bug gives me the heebies every time I visit…new post, so this damn thing will move down the page, pretty please?
June 23, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Ew. Shudder. That’s worse than your post about dried old-man poop.
June 26, 2008 at 6:28 am
oh gosh thats really scary, i cant imagine that in my ear, ill probably panic and try to dig it out myself
June 30, 2008 at 12:24 am
I had a patient who I thought had a dead bug in her ear.
Pulled it out with alligator forceps, but it was not a dead bug, it was a
FEATHER. from her down pillow, I guess…
July 1, 2008 at 2:28 pm
My older sister has had swimmer’s ear for a couple days now, thats about as bad as I’ve heard of involving ears (until now). But as a kid I had a bug fly straight into my eye. I don’t why my eyelid instinct didn’t kick in, but I wore sunglasses every time I went outside for a couple months.
July 31, 2008 at 8:50 pm
You are so right a bug like in the picture crawled in my ear last night after I fell a sleep on the couch. It was such an awful pain I to was screeming and dancing around in pain, ready to head to the ER we flushed it out The bug scared me to death I am now afarid to lay down
August 2, 2008 at 1:28 am
man i just moved to iowa from california, to go to college and i was hearing buzing in my right ear last night, so tonight i kept hearing it, so i freaked out im like ” theres a bug in my ear” so i hopped in the shower and i tolled myself it was trapped water since i havent boughten any q tips here yet, so i kept tilting my head from side to side trying to get the water as i thought out, so i layed down on my right side and instead of sitting up when i felt the buzz, i just layyed there, then i felt warm, so i felt to see if water was coming out, …sure enough there was so water so i shaked my head and a little black beetle thing fell out, i watched amazed as it crawled on my bed, i was like WTF and killed it, but shit man im freaked out rifght now, im all paranoid about it laying eggs, but i read this is commom, so i dont think it did, but if it did, ill be dealing with this shit agian soon lol
August 7, 2008 at 6:47 pm
i feel like i have a bug in my ear!!!
August 9, 2008 at 12:28 am
my granny told me a story about the same sort of thing happening to her sister, they poured a homemade lintament concoction that her family used for everything from fevers to aches and pains, into her ear and out crawled a cockroach. i still sleep with my pillow wrapped around my head to this day. ps. the rest of the treatment included following the lintament with a shot of paul jones whiskey mixed with a teaspoon of sugar. by mouth of course.
September 2, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Last night I had a small insect fly into my ear and buzz around for about 5 minutes while I felt like I was going to go mad! I carefully poked a Q-tip in and out that was dipped in water. I must have managed to kill it because it stopped buzzing. We called an ENT on call and he said to either come in and have it looked at or to try putting in some mineral oil and see if it comes out on it’s own. Being on a budget I am going to try the latter.
What an awful feeling though!
Also, I wonder how many bedbugs crawl in and (hopefully) out of our ears on a daily basis?
September 17, 2008 at 8:49 pm
BLOOOOOOOOOOOAHHHHHHHHHHH!
October 3, 2008 at 11:56 am
Doesn’t look like a lightning bug. Looks like a click beetle. Click beetles can have striated caparaces like that. Lightning bugs don’t.
There is nothing in the man’s ear for it to eat. I suspect it just wanted a warm place to sleep and keep safe. Was it a cold night where the man was sleeping? End of the season perhaps?
October 10, 2008 at 9:56 am
I woke up with a bug in my ear once. It was around 4:30 in the morning, 2 days after my 10th birthday. I remember feeling some pain but I assumed it was just part of a dream so I rolled over to my left side. Bad idea…the bug went even further into my ear and banged against my ear drum. I jolted up in pain and started moaning while still half asleep and clutching my ear. My younger sister freaked out and woke up my mom who took me into the bathroom. We thought it was just earwax buildup running amok, and I tried sticking my finger to get it out. My mom wanted to take me to the emergency room so I tilted my head to the side to keep whatever it was from going in deeper.
At that time, I felt it coming out so I yelled for my mom who took me back into the bathroom and pulled it out with tweezers. I felt so much better, but my mom screamed and started hitting it with a towel. We made an appointment with my doctor who laughed when he saw that we’d brought the bug in a baggie as proof of what I had went through. He told us it had been a June Bug, the same beetle shown at the top of this page. Yuck.
It was DISGUSTING and I’m still revolted by the fact that it happened to me, especially because I can’t stand bugs, but it makes for a good story every now and then!
October 24, 2008 at 10:39 pm
I am Actually not sure at the moment if there is a bug in my ear or not… I woke up this morning to a sharp pain in my ear and just thought it was a common ear ache so i waited a little while and tried putting Hydrogen Peroxide in my ear and besides the bubbles it sounded like something was moving in there… I am going to go to the doctor in 2 days and I’m hoping for him to say that its not a bug but something else. I really don’t know what to think right now so i just looked up what i thought to try to find an answer and was brought to this sight. I really hope it’s not a bug…
November 5, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Happened to me with a mosquito in my ear. Mom put peroxide in my ear, and asked if she was drowning or poisoning it. She said, “Both!” It worked!
November 24, 2008 at 8:11 am
I was violently awakened this morning to very loud crackling/static in my ear and I could feel something moving around.
I thought I was just crazy and tried to go back to sleep, but every time I laid my head down the noise and pain would start.
Unsure I was going mad or not I began vigorously shaking my ear, using my palm as a plunger, holding my nose and blasting out air, turning my head sideways and shaking it.
Eventually after 10 minutes of agony, I noticed a small, dead, curled-up ant on my bed that I presume fell out of my ear, as the pain and static has now ceased.
I am really worried about the possibility of infection etc as ants carry many diseases
November 24, 2008 at 10:16 am
An hour after the traumatizing experience, I realized to pour H2O2(3%) in my ear. Hopefully I will not get an infection that eats my brain.
May 13, 2009 at 12:03 am
Oh, I am SO glad you posted this! I just had an ant crawl into my ear about 10-15 minutes ago. I felt the same sensations, minus the pain. Just a tickle and this static sound. I assumed right away that it was a bug! AUGH!!! And I, too, HATE bugs!!! After some rubbing and finally getting a Q-tip in my ear, it came crawling out. AUGH! I brushed it away, and I don’t know where it landed…hopefully, it’s dead wherever it’s at! Little bastard!!! Traumatized for life now. *SHUDDER*
December 9, 2008 at 12:24 pm
just today I had a cockroach in my ear. I knew it was one (don’t know how I knew, but I just did.) and I was trying to get it out. then I had to go and do something and suddenly the thing fell out of my ear. now I’m afriad the thing did lay it’s eggs in my ear canal and I’m terrified of that prospect!!
February 8, 2009 at 10:28 pm
that person is blessed that he did not go deaf. and that bug could have layed eggs somewhere in his ear—it just give me chills thinking about it.
March 26, 2009 at 5:06 am
Ahh, I am freaked out right now! I am going straight to the doctor in the morning! I’ve been up for two hours already (its 4AM) wondering if the sound was coming from my roof or inside my head. This is one of my worst freaking nightmares. Oh god this is horrible!
May 30, 2009 at 10:57 am
I just came home from E.R. where Dr. pulled 1/2 inch beetle from my R ear. The pain was worse than labor.
June 29, 2009 at 9:40 am
I can attest to the horrific feeling and panic. I had a June bug go into my ear the other night. I quickly jumped from bed and tried pulled the cotton from a Qtip and tried as I was screaming to pry the bug out. It scratched and clawed inside my ear and on my eardrum until I screamed for my husband to help me. I was on the floor crying, screaming, begging him to help. He told me to lie on the floor and he poured mineral oil in my ear and the bug backed out.
It was the worst experience of my life and I have had three children and passed multiple kidney stones and stone removals. I would not wish this on anyone. I think the CIA might try this instead of waterboarding. I know it would work.
Crazy Woman in Kansas