And then along comes "Just About Anything", hitting you right in the head!

I woke up yesterday morning at 05:00 to crashing sounds, thinking that my house was being broken into. Before I could even rise from my bed I felt a pain in my head, specifically my right ear.

When I reached my hand to my ear I felt something foreign and realized that it was a hard shelled insect crawling into my ear canal!

The noise and pain was intense! It was like some scary movie but it was happening to me. To say that I was freaked out would be understating this event. I jumped up and ran to the bathroom, looking in the mirror to see that it had already gone past any chance of even seeing it. I was shaking my head like a dog does when it's drying off, trying to shake it out.  Logic and clear thinking were not in play here at this point.

I tried sloshing water into the ear to wash it out but that didn't work. My wife was running around in a panic because my Tourette's like outbursts were scaring her. I was alternating between screaming "Ouch" and "Oh shit" in a constant stream.

After a few minutes I knew that it was pointless to try to remove the bug myself and I hurriedly dressed and left at a high rate of speed to get to the local Emergency Room of the county hospital 18 miles away.

When I got there after a dangerous drive through a notorious deer crossing and radar trap area, the doctor saw me within 10 minutes of my arrival. He first tried flushing with saline an a flexible syringe but quickly saw that it wouldn't work. I asked him if he could see the thing and he said that he could only see the very end of it because it was so deep.  

The pain and noises were unbearable.  The creepy factor of an unknown insect inside my head just millimeters away from my brain was getting me a bit looney as well.

The doctor shot some Lidocaine into the ear to kill the bug and it finally stopped moving.  After a few unsuccessful attempts to fish it out with a probe, the doctor sent me home with instructions to see a ENT asap.

I went home and was napping in my recliner, waiting for 08:00 so that I could call and schedule an appointment when I felt the bug move and heard it making popping and whirring noises. Jumping up out of my chair I told my wife that I had to go to the Emergency Room in Huntsville, Al and I would try to call the ENT while on the way.

I pulled into the parking lot of the ENT facility at 08:05 and had them on the phone while parking my truck, the whole time pleading with them to help me. After filling out several forms while in the windy parking lot (couldn't use the waiting room due to COVID-19)  a doctor took me in and started THE PAIN.  That's the only way to describe what happened next. After attempting to flush the bug out, "plan B" started.

She took some forceps and started digging. I couldn't stand it! The pain was like an icepick to the brain.

The doctor applied some numbing drops and an oil to kill the bug and left me for about 15 minutes.  I listened to that little demon die in my head and was thinking that if it would just back itself and leave I wouldn't even try to kill it.  We could just both go our separate ways. No deal.

The doctor came back and went for it with the forceps again.  the noise and pain were something you can't even imagine! With a triumphant shout she set me free from the misery. "I got it", she shouted!

She threw it on a gauze pad and didn't want anything to do with it after that.  Turns out that she is afraid of bugs.

After a hydrogen peroxide flush I was sent home with some antibiotic ear drops. It still hurts and it still creeps me out. I had nightmares all night last night.

When I was driving home I was thinking the whole time, what if this happened after TSHTF? There is no preparation to save you from this unless you have an experienced ENT in your MAG.

Humbling and troubling.

Thanks for taking the time to read all of this. I hope it never happens to any of you.

You going to tell us WTF kind of bug it was?

Earwig, cockroach?

Sorry.  I forgot that part.  It was a long bodied beetle.  Looked like a click beetle, about an inch long and about 4mm wide.

I saw that Documentary...

This is all I could think of while reading....

I would have tried hydrogen peroxide at home with the water pick... maybe tea tree oil....
Crap I won't sleep tonight thanks OP!

Wow.

Not that uncommon.

Where I am the most common is a moth but worldwide it is a cockroach.

Standard treatment is to put in mineral oil and kill it then remove it with some of these.  I often just pull them out because people are going crazy and you can usually get it done pretty quickly without much trauma with a moth.

https://www.amazon.com/SE-SPAF-3-5-Alligator-Forceps-Stainless/dp/B0066DSTOE


It is amazing how much having the right tool for the job helps.  I actually keep one in my pack at work because our hospital doesn’t stock them in the ER and I like to have one handy. I end up using it a couple of times a year.

I spent 10 days in Haiti after the earthquake in 2010. We slept a piece of plywood on top of 4 x 4. The Entire place was overrun by cockroaches. I was waiting entire time for one of them to crawl in my ear at night. Should’ve brought some cotton balls.

OP your story creeped me out . I would of ran and dived into the pool to try to flush it out .
Now call an exterminator and spray the whole house .

Hope you fully recover with no more pain OP.  My girlfriend is making me order her a pair of those forceps after reading this to her

I've had a few people with roaches in their ears.   Freaks me out every time.

Damn.

I suspect there will be more than one purchase based on this thread.

You know you can’t resist clicking on this:


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uDZicR8o_CM

The first one I ever got out, I was bent over the patient trying to pull it out and it came out and scurried down the guy’s clothes between he and I as I jumped back completely startled.

That sounds as though it more than sucked... got a pick of this thjng?

Had an ant in mine once camping.
Fuck that shit.

Damn! I just had my house blown away around me by a tornado last month... I don't know which is worse!

Fuck.  That.