So I jerk awake at 6 AM this morning with this hideous noise in my left ear. The sound was something between a mosquito on crack and a really loud, detuned AM radio station. First I start slapping my head, but there is nothing there. Then it stops, and I wonder:
Is this what you hear when you are having a brain aneurysm?
So I run downstairs and on my way, the screeching noise starts again. Frantically, I race into the bathroom and start tearing open cabinets looking for Q-tips (later I was profoundly happy we were out, but not then). The noise stops and starts again, over and over, and I am really beginning to go batshit. But then I am sure:
Something is in there and it ain’t too happy about it.
So finally I start doing that thing you do to relieve pressure during take-off and landings on an airplane. You know, hold your nose and blow. Nothing happens. I keep doing it and suddenly this thing, this insect, pops out of my ear and lands on the floor where it quickly meets the sole of my slipper.
I swear I am not making this up. Has anyone ever had this happen to them? I mean, I’ve done a lot of camping in my life and nothing has ever burrowed so far into my ear that I couldn’t feel it with my pinky. This wasn’t a gnat sized insect, it was closer in size to an M&M candy. I stood in the shower for a long time with the spray going directly into my ear. Of course I saved the bug, should I suddenly have a brain seizure because:
The disgusting thing laid eggs in there and the whole family wants out. :eek:
Yeah, what I’d like to know is why it found your ear to be such a tempting place to be. I’d also like to add that if this happened to me, I’d sleep with earplugs the rest of my life.
My bosses wife had the exact same thing happen to her. She, however, was not so lucky in that the bug didn’t come out on it’s own. She frantically drove to the ER where they extracted the little bugger. I can’t remember the technique…I think they used hydrogen peroxide and the bug was “floated” out.
I was terrified to go to sleep after I heard that and slept with earplugs for quite some time. I’ve since gotten over it…at least until I read this thread.
Um, I didn’t think of that. I have to go to bed soon. I don’t own ear plugs. Ha ha, it never crossed my mind it might happen again. Ha…ha, ahem. Late night tv is pretty good sometimes, so I’ve heard.
You know what’s funny? My girlfriend won’t even let me show her the bug. I’m kind of proud of the little bastard, but she’s having none of it.
You just reminded me of an episode of ER where Lucy Lee Flippen guest starred as a patient: ER" (1994) in episode: “Responsible Parties” (episode # 5.21) 13 May 1999 I think that was the one, if memory serves me correctly, and if the IMDB info is right.
She screamed when she saw what the doctor pulled out of her ear. She had no idea it was an insect. Cockroach? Don’t remember exactly.
I had a buddy who got a cockroach in his ear while living in Argentina (also while asleep). He said it was horrible, this loud scrabbling in his ear. He ran to the doctor, who went in with tweezers and got one big leg. Then the doctor poured mineral oil in the ear and the cockroach flailed around and then slid out. The guy asked if the doctor wasn’t going to disinfect his ear or something, and got a scornful “you American wimp!” look in reply.
He was still alive as of telling me the story the next year, so I guess he was OK.
A similar thing happened to my little brother many years ago, but it was only a house fly or something. However, he was atop a ferris wheel type thing at the time, and inbetween trying to convince the operator to LET HIM OFF and getting to the nearest ENT clinic, it was a good half an hour before it was drowned and extracted.
‘It felt like it was eating my brain.’ he said
I read an article once where an emergency room doctor was discussing the best way to get cockroaches out of people’s ears. There was some dispute about whether mineral oil or lidocaine (I think) was more effective.
One day someone came into the emergency room with a cockroach in EACH EAR. So they were able to try both methods at once and see which worked best. (I think they both worked about the same.)
This seems an appropriate time to mention the episode of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery “The Caterpillar” (based on Oscar Cook’s story “Boomerang”) in which a man arranges to have an earwig placed in a rival’s ear. The earwig is supposed to bore through the brain, being unable to turn around.
Unfortunately, of course, he gets the bug in his own ear. Miraculously, he survives. But he learns that, along the way, it probably laid eggs. (presumably it wasn’t a caterpillar, then.) http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/EpisodeGuideSummary/showid-1013/season-2 (It’s at the vety bottom of the page.)