What should you do if a bug gets stuck in your ear?
It's summer and we're getting people in the emergency department with insects in their ears.
One minute they're sound asleep and the next they're in full flight, screaming and clawing at their heads.
Their discomfort is palpable as the frightened
insect scratches for its life against the eardrum, one of the most delicate sensory organs in our bodies. Doctors don't see the ones that get away, only the ones that are too big, or too resolute, to come out of their 2.5cm-deep human burrow.
Too often patients take matters into their own hands, some even ramming their ear canals with a cotton bud in an attempt to kill the thing. The result is an angrier bug, a traumatised ear canal and sometimes a perforated eardrum. Talk about pain.
So what works? Alcohol will kill a bug, but you'll feel every one of its death throes. What you want is something thick and viscous enough to restrain the insect and eventually suffocate it.
Cooking oil fits the bill. If you're lucky it'll die and you'll be able to drain it out, if not your doctor can remove the corpse with an otoscope and a tiny pair of forceps, under direct visualisation to avoid damaging the eardrum.
Sleep well.
Gary Payinda MD is an emergency medicine consultant in Whangarei.
Have a science, health topic or question you'd like addressed? Email: drpayinda@gmail.com
(This column provides general information and is not a substitute for the medical advice of your personal doctor.)
