Ear parasite?

Now, about roaches crawling into ears. You may think this is some kind of deranged myth. Uh-uh. Happens all the time. In fact, a controversy has raged since 1980 over the best way to get the little bastards out. The conventional remedy: drown the critter with mineral oil. "One cannot use the commercially available roach sprays," one MD sagely notes, "because of technical difficulty and for possible medicolegal reasons"--i.e., the patient might sue. But mineral oil isn't ideal either, because the insect takes a while to go through its death throes in the patient's ear.

One proposed alternative is 2-percent lidocaine anesthetic. The value of this was seemingly demonstrated when a patient showed up at a hospital with cockroaches in both ears. (Unanswered question: what was this guy doing?) Recognizing a golden opportunity for a controlled clinical trial, the attending physicians put mineral oil in one ear. "The cockroach succumbed after a valiant but futile struggle, but its removal required much dexterity on the part of the house officer," they wrote. In the other ear the doctors put lidocaine. "The roach exited the canal at a convulsive rate of speed" and was promptly stomped by an intern.

But lidocaine has drawbacks too. Another doctor who tried it reported that (1) the roach died in situ and was hell to get out, and (2) the roach had punctured the eardrum, so the lidocaine penetrated the inner ear and the patient had the whirlies for the next five hours. Also, subsequent tests have shown that lidocaine works much more slowly than your top-quality mineral oil.

Promising alternative: suction. Of course, one must take care not to inadvertently seal the ear canal with the suction tip, thereby risking "tympanic membrane barotrauma" and, for all I know, possibly sucking out the patient's brains.

What else? How about fly larvae in the ear? Happens. Also earwigs, with those scary pincers. You know the story. Earwig gets into a guy's ear, chews through his brain, causes horrible agony. Finally it stops. The doctors say, good news: the earwig came out the other side! Bad news: it was female and laid eggs. You've also heard that this is BS, that earwigs don't really crawl into ears. Not so; two known cases. The part about eating out your brains may still be a myth, but who knows?

MrStitches said:
What, you didn't see star trek V?

MrStitches said:
What, you didn't see star trek V?

horatios_dreams said:

star trek V? no. star trek II.

i'll bet you're not even a real geek.

Alukh said:
Is it possible for humans to have cockroaches living in their ears?

Thistle said:
Geraniums can also grow in your eye.

MrStitches said:

Don't make me come over there.
It's been a while since I've seen the films. I thought it was the weird, crappy looking for god one, not the good, Khan one.

Thistle said:

yes. I think it usually gets stuck between the lid and the eyeball.

horatios_dreams said:

KHAAAAAAAAN!

most definitely.