I believe many people have had the experience of small bugs in their ears, when the “experienced” elderly will tell you to put a few drops of sesame oil in your ears, the bugs will come out. Is this “ancestral recipe” really effective? Doctors say that doing so will only increase the difficulty factor of removing the worms. So, what should you do if you have a foreign body in your ear, and share some tips with you today.
What can we put in our ears?
Do you know? This amazing place, the ear, can actually fit into many things, do not believe it, let’s take a look. There are moths fluttering in the ears; there are cotton swabs of lint entering the ears; there are cockroaches entering the ears of pregnant women. Clinically, we have encountered a welder who had sparks splash into his ear because of the impact when it splashed into the ear canal, piercing the eardrum and entering the middle ear. To prevent further infection, we admitted the patient to the hospital on an emergency basis and surgically removed the foreign body. It is really difficult to think about what the doctor would have found if he hadn’t had a keen eye.
Types of foreign bodies in the external ear canal: Animal foreign bodies, such as insects. Among all kinds of insects, cockroaches are the most common because they like a dark and humid environment. It is scary to think that the ubiquitous cockroaches are walking around in your ears; plant-based, such as beans and wheat grains; and non-biological foreign bodies, such as small toys, stones, gauze strips, play-doh, etc., which are more common in children.
The clinical manifestations of foreign bodies in the ear vary depending on the size, shape, location and type of foreign body.
For small, non-irritating foreign bodies, they may remain for a long time without any symptoms; larger foreign bodies can cause ear pain, tinnitus, hearing loss, reflex coughing, etc.
Live insects, for example, can crawl in the external ear canal and can cause severe ear pain and tinnitus. Plant-based foreign bodies that swell with water can compress the external ear canal or cause local inflammation, resulting in swelling and pain in the ear. The deeper the location, the more pronounced the symptoms generally are.
For foreign bodies that easily penetrate the eardrum such as cotton swabs, pencil tips, tree branches and hairpins, they often cause pain, vertigo, ear pus, and even hearing loss and facial paralysis.
Note that the following two practices are absolutely wrong!
The first one is to try to pull out the insects that enter the ear by yourself. If you do this, and you accidentally kill the insect, the body remains in your ear and you are in trouble, increasing the risk of infection.
The second type, indiscriminate drops of vegetable oil. This will only make it more difficult for the doctor to remove the bugs.
Different foreign bodies Different treatment methods
The following are the recommended treatment measures for different foreign bodies in the ear.
1. For round and smooth foreign bodies, a foreign body hook or other instrument can be used to cross the foreign body through the gap and hook it out. For children who are unable to cooperate, do not use forceps to prevent the foreign body from being pushed deeper into the ear and damaging the eardrum.
2. When the foreign body is small, it can be washed out by flushing method. Contraindications to the flushing method: combined with otitis media, perforated eardrum; eardrum perforated by foreign body injury or combined with middle ear foreign body; plant foreign body (such as beans) easily swollen by water; sharp and angular foreign body; lime and other chemical reaction by water.
3. Live insects, etc. can be removed or flushed out with forceps after being anesthetized by drops of 2% bupivacaine, 70% ethanol, etc. Small flying insects are common in summer, and can also try to bright light to induce out.
4. has been soaked swollen plant foreign body, should first use 95% ethanol drops into, so that it dehydrated, shrinkage and then removed. Fragile foreign body can also be sucked out by using suction device in stages.
If there is secondary infection in the external ear canal, anti-infection treatment should be given first, and the foreign body should be removed after the inflammation has subsided, or the external ear canal infection should be treated actively after removal.
In addition, we remind you that you should pay attention to ear hygiene in general and never use cotton swabs to pull out ears by yourself. For children, parents should check or ask questions from time to time, and once a foreign body is found in the external ear canal, do not try to remove it by yourself, because multiple attempts will reduce the success rate of foreign body removal from the external ear canal and even increase the possibility of complications, so you should consult an ENT department in time.
