You may have recently read our nightmare bug-in-ear story by Katie Holley, a woman who rushed to the ER with a live roach in her ear, which crawled up in there while she was sleeping.
In case you missed it, we’ll give you the TL;DR version that sums up the horror: “I could feel that my ear was not right. I grabbed a cotton swab and gently inserted it into my ear to see what was up and I felt something move," Holley wrote. "When I pulled the cotton swab out, there were two dark brown, skinny pieces stuck to the tip. Moments later, I came to the realization that they were legs. LEGS. Legs that could only belong to an adventurous palmetto bug [a type of roach] exploring my ear canal.”
So, Holley rushed to the ER with a freaking roach in her ear to have it surgically removed by a doctor. Until that point, she could feel the thing crawling around in there. Unfortunately, things didn’t end there. A few days later, she went to see her primary care physician, who flushed her ear and removed a few more roach pieces. She was then referred to an ear, nose, and throat specialist, who discovered there was still a head, torso, more limbs, and antennae in there. Thankfully, it was all removed—a week after the bug first crawled in there—and she’s now doing OK. Or...as OK as you can be after that trauma.
The idea of a bug in your ear is horrifying enough. But knowing that it happens (somewhat) regularly is even worse.
One of the scariest parts of Holley's story was when the ENT told her that he extracted bugs from peoples' ears at least once a month—and that she was the second person that day who needed. it. Cue internal (or external, honestly) screaming.
“We see this about four to five times a year in our clinic,” Benjamin McGrew, M.D., an associate professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham department of otolaryngology (who did not treat Holley), tells SELF. “Usually it’s a co*ckroach that has wedged in the ear canal and can’t get out.”
It can get even grosser than that: “I’ve seen spiders make a web in the ear canal; small moths and flying insects can get in as well,” Erich Voigt, M.D., chief of general/sleep otolaryngology at NYU Langone Health, tells SELF. “co*ckroaches tend to get stuck inside and will scratch at the ear drum with their front legs.”
Because the critter is usually still alive, it can create a bunch of bizarre and uncomfortable symptoms, including pain and a weird crawling sensation, Michael Tom, M.D., an ear nose and throat physician with ENT and Allergy Associates, tells SELF. And, if the insect has wings, the patient might also hear a buzzing sound or noise related to the wing movement. “Often the bug tries to crawl but keeps running into the eardrum,” Dr. Tom says.
So, OK, this happens. Maybe not all the time, but enough to fuel your nightmares. Here's what might increase the chances of this happening to you.
While ENTs may see this a few times a year, Nancy Troyano, Ph.D., a board-certified entomologist and director of technical education and training for Rentokil North America, tells SELF it’s pretty rare as a whole. However, she says there are a few scenarios where it’s more likely to happen than others:
