Woman Had Strange Sensation in Her Ear, Doctors Discover Live Spider

2023-11-03 15:32:36

A spider was found in the ear of a 64-year-old Taiwanese woman. For days, she was bothered by a sensation of movement, and heard clicking and small noises continuously in her left ear, says NBC News. After several complicated nights, she finally decided to go to a clinic specializing in ear diseases.

It was there that the doctors made this surprising discovery: a small spider had taken up residence in the patient’s ear canal. They also found its exoskeleton, abandoned after molting. The latter, as well as the spider, were sucked up using a small tube, according to a report published Wednesday October 22 in The New England Journal of Medecinespecify our colleagues.

A woman with hypertension presented to the clinic with a 4-day history of abnormal sounds in her ear. On examination, a small spider was seen moving within the external auditory canal of the left ear. The molted exoskeleton of the spider was also present. pic.twitter.com/SfeNBBGQS8

— NEJM (@NEJM) October 25, 2023

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“She didn’t feel any pain.”

Dr. Tengchin Wang, co-author of the report and director of the otolaryngology department at Tainan City Municipal Hospital, assured that the patient did not suffer. “She didn’t feel any pain because the spider was very small. It only measures 2 to 3 mm,” he said. It was the first time he discovered an animal that had molted inside an ear. But the doctor saw others: ants, moths, cockroaches or mosquitoes… Discoveries that remain rare. During their career, specialists would identify around ten insects or arthropods, according to an American ENT doctor speaking to NBC News.

Live insects account for at least 14% of foreign objects found in ear canals, according to a 2019 study relayed by our colleagues. In 2020, for example, doctors discovered a Japanese beetle in the ear of a 14-year-old girl in the United States. She had been alerted by a crawling sensation in her right ear after swimming in a swimming pool.