A woman from Chennai, India, who was only identified by the name of Selvi, had presented a very interesting yet hair-tingling case to the doctors of the Government Stanley Medical College Hospital.
Selvi, who’s 42 years old, decided to head straight to her bed after spending long hours at work. She was deep in sleep when she suddenly felt a sensation around her face that bothered her rest and woke her up in the middle of the night.
Selvi said that the sensation could be described as similar to when an insect would’ve crawled up the nose. Although she was unsure and really had no idea what it could possibly be, Selvi asked her son-in-law to take her to any clinic that would check her immediately.
Selvi and her son-in-law ended up in the Government Stanley Hospital. The doctors ran her through a nasal endoscopy. It didn’t take that long for the doctors to confirm what Selvi initially thought.
A cockroach, alive and squirming, was lodged uninterruptedly between Selvi’s two eyes near the brain inside her skull, The New Indian Express reports the whole story.
Professor M.N. Shakar, head of the otolaryngology department at the Government Stanley Hospital, said, “This is the first such case I have seen in my three decades of practice.”
Otolaryngology is basically the formal term for medical study concerning the ENT, or ears, nose, and throat.
Selvi recalled how she knew something went inside her without her permission. She said, “I could not explain the feeling but I was sure it was some insect. There was a tingling, crawling sensation.”
Selvi continued, “Whenever it moved, it gave me a burning sensation in my eyes. I spent the entire night in discomfort, sitting up and waiting for dawn to go to Stanley hospital after getting the reference of a doctor from my employer.”
Selvi, who works domestically and lives in Injambakkam. She said that she already felt the cockroach brushing through her nostril. When she was about to take it off, it already went inside deeper into her nose.
The doctors of the hospital, meanwhile, were still shocked by the discovery of a live cockroach. These people had dealt with maggots and fireflies. They had to use a pair of clamps and a sucker to remove the cockroach. The Huffington Post posted the video of the nasal endoscopy identifying the critter.
Dr. Shankar said, “It was sitting in the skull base, between the two eyes, close to the brain. If left inside, it would have died before long and the patient would have developed infection which would have spread to the brain.”
He added, “It was difficult to remove it because of the place it was sitting in. I had to first drag it to a place from where I could pull it out. It was finally removed after 45 minutes.”
