People should seek medical help at an otolaryngology clinic if an insect crawls into an ear canal, a doctor at the Ministry of Health and Welfare hospital in Taichung’s Fengyuan District (豐原) said yesterday.
Department of Otolaryngology director Chang Yu-chien (張煜謙) said the hospital recently treated a 60-year-old woman, surnamed Lin (林), after a cockroach crawled into one of her ears.
Lin said she was brushing dirt off an umbrella, but what she thought was a dust ball turned out to be a cockroach, adding that the insect flew into her ear.
Photo courtesy of Fengyuan Hospital
Lin said she initially thought it was another type of insect and asked her children to see if it was possible to get it out, adding that she was able to touch the insect with her fingernails.
After failing to remove the insect, Lin’s children took her to the hospital, where doctors used forceps to remove the bug, which turned out to be a German cockroach about 3cm in length.
“It is very uncommon for cockroaches to crawl into the ear canal,” Chang said, adding that in his 18-year medical career, it was the first time that he had seen such a large cockroach in an ear canal.
Chang said he usually encounters objects in children’s ear canals after they insert them into their ears, or smaller insects such as ants or moths.
If a moth enters the ear canal, people can use the insects’ tendency to move toward light and shine a flashlight down the ear canal, or dab some honey on the outer ear to lure the insect out, Chang said.
People who are afraid that the insects in the ear canal might damage their hearing can drip some oil into the ear to drown the insect before attempting to remove it, he added.
However, the safest and best way is to seek medical help at an otolaryngologist, where doctors would have the proper tools to extract objects in the canal, Chang added.
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