The team of surgeons was able to extract the live roach from the woman’s skull.
As bizarre and sickening as it might sound, a team of surgeons from an Indian hospital recently removed a live roach lodged in a 43-year-old woman’s skull. The patient told her doctors that the live roach must have entered through her nose while she was asleep and that she could feel him squirming in-between her eyes and under the nose’s bridge all night long.
A 43-year-old woman from Injambakkam, India, was transferred to the Stanley Medical College Hospital from Chennai, after telling her doctor that she experienced a burning sensation inside her head. The woman, known only as Selvi, declared that in the middle of the night, she woke feeling pain inside her head and something that resembled movement.
While lying in bed and trying to sleep, the woman realized that the burning sensation was the result of something moving behind her nose bridge and in-between her eyes. Selvi immediately realized that a crawling insect must have somehow entered her skull while she was asleep.
Early in the morning, Selvi asked her son-in-law to take her to the local hospital. The medical staffed examined the woman and referred Selvi to the Stanley Medical College Hospital from Chennai.
Using a tiny nose probe, the surgeons from the Chennai hospital discovered that the woman had a large roach crawling inside her skull. The insect removal operation was hard and lengthy, as the insect was too big to be removed via suction.
Using the nasal probe and a pair of forceps, the team of surgeons was able to extract the live roach from the woman’s skull. Doctor M. N. Shankar, the head of the hospital’s Ear, Nose, and Throat Department declared that Selvi was arrived just in the nick of time to have the insect removed from her skull.
Shankar pointed out that if the patient ignored the symptoms, the live roach would have probably perished in a couple of days. The bug’s decomposing body would have brought along a severe infection which could potentially affect the patient’s brain in a matter of days.
The head of the ENT Department added that in all his years of practice, he’s seen and removed many foreign bodies, insects included, but this is the first time he has seen a mature insect lodged in someone’s skull
He also declared that it’s not unusual for insects to get stuck in the nasal cavity or ear canal, but it’s rare to see a live roach making its way all the way up to the brain.
Image source: Wikipedia