New Zealand man suffers from blocked ear, doctor extracts cockroach after three days
A New Zealand man, who works for Greenpeace was recently left with a blocked ear. While he initially thought it was due to swimming in a pool, he later found out a cockroach had made its way into his ear.
After a quick swim, Zane Wedding felt an odd sensation. He brushed it aside. Later that evening, the 40-year-old Aucklander took a nap on his couch. “He woke up with a blocked ear – and the feeling there was something wriggling inside,” according to The Guardian.
The next day, he went to a clinic and had his ear syringed. He was given antibiotics, instructions to blow-dry the side of his head, and was told to return if he still felt movement. However, the matter got worse and he couldn’t sleep.
He told CNN: “When I had to walk around, I would instantly be dizzy. When I would lay down, I could hear the water moving around my ear drum.”
He tried everything he could that weekend. “I tried anything I could for relief — ear candles, jumping on one leg, chewing gum, I went for a run — just anything I could think of [to] get the ear to clear.”
Then suddenly on Sunday night, the wriggling sensation stopped, but he still felt deaf on one ear. So, next day he went to see an ENT specialist to get to the root of the matter, the report added.
When he got his ear canal examined, the doctor found he had an insect inside. The extraction of the roach took only five minutes, and he felt immediate relief. “I realised I had just spent a weekend cooking a cockroach in my head with a hairdryer,” Wedding told USA Today. “It made me feel sick instantly.”
Wedding, who is Māori, said it is said in New Zealand that people from various racial and ethnic backgrounds are less likely to see a doctor and less likely to receive a referral to a specialist. However, he urged people not to ignore any feeling of discomfort, adding: “People know their own bodies.”