‘The worst thing I’ve ever seen stuck in an ear’: Stomach-churning footage captures a specialist pulling out part of a COMB from a man’s ear canal
- The anonymous patient soon regretted using a comb to reach an itch in his ear
- Audiologist Neel Raithatha filmed removing the object with a pair of tweezers
- The patient is lucky to have not suffered severe trauma to his eardrum
Gruesome footage shows the tooth of a comb being pulled out a patients’ ear from the depths of his ear canal.
Audiologist Neel Raithatha made the stomach-churning discovery in his client’s ear last week, revealing it was the most dangerous object he has found.
He pulled the object, which can be seen lodged deeply within ear wax, out with a pair of tweezers.
The client, whose name is unknown, used the tooth of the comb, which measured 1mm, to reach a difficult itch in his ear.
He then experienced unbearable earache, rushing to Mr Raithatha at The Hear Clinic in Oadby, Leicestershire, for advice.
The patient is lucky the tooth didn’t cause severe damage, Mr Raithatha said.
Audiologist Neel Raithatha, Oadby, Leicestershire, made the grim discovery of the tooth comb in the anonymous client’s ear last week – the most dangerous object he has found
‘The client was fortunate that the sharp end, which was facing towards the eardrum, was not further lodged as it would have most certainly have perforated the eardrum,’ Mr Raithatha said.
‘It probably was the worst thing I’ve seen stuck in an ear because of the potential trauma it could have caused.’
The client had gone to the ear specialist, who is a self-proclaimed ‘wax whisperer’, knowing that the tooth was lodged inside.
He had recklessly chosen the tool to itch his ear, and the tooth had snapped off in the process.
Although a bizarre story, it’s not the first time Mr Raithatha has revealed footage of un-blocking ears with strange items, including earrings and pen caps.
In December, footage showed the moment huge chunks of wax and a plastic clothes tag were pulled out of a patient’s ear.
The object had been causing unbearable ear ache, according to Mr Raithatha, but the patient was lucky that he had not suffered severe damage to his eardrum
Needing to use forceps to pull the object out, it is revealed the person’s eardrum was damaged by the amount of debris in their ear.
Even cotton buds can be a hazard – footage in November showed Mr Raithatha removing one from a patient’s ear after it had been lodged for several days.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) say that cotton buds should not be used to clean ears.
Katherine Harrop-Griffiths, consultant in audiovestibular medicine and chairman of the guideline committee, said: ‘The general advice given is not to insert anything into the ear canal as it is self-cleaning.
‘The only cleaning needed is to gently wipe the conch of the external ear with a damp flannel over a finger.
‘Ear irrigation is an effective method of removing earwax.’