Cockroach Extracted From Man's Ear After Three Days Of Blocked Sensation

A New Zealand man who went for a swim last week at his local pool assumed the reason behind his blocked ear to be water. But, the cause turned out to be far worse than he would have imagined—a cockroach had burrowed inside his ear.

Zane Wedding, 40, of Auckland went home with a blocked sensation in his left ear after taking a dip in a local pool Friday. He assumed he had water in his ears and used drops before going to sleep to help clear it out. But, then he felt the water move while he sat still and decided it was time to visit the doctor.

"When I woke up in the morning and it was still blocked I went straight to the doctor. I was waiting for the doctor [surgery] to open up, it was that infuriating," Wedding said to CNN.

Wedding left the doctor’s office Saturday with an antibiotics prescription and an instruction to blow dry his ear using a hairdryer, the New Zealand Herald reported.

"I left the doctor with no relief at all. I spent most of the weekend laying on my side or jamming a hairdryer in my ear. When I had to walk around I would instantly be dizzy. When I would lay down, I could hear the water moving around my eardrum," Wedding said to CNN.

The wiggling sensation in Wedding’s ear stopped Sunday but the blockage remained. When he visited the doctor a second time, a thorough examination revealed the real cause—a cockroach. The insect had climbed inside Wedding’s ear while he was swimming.

"In that moment I realized every movement I'd felt over the weekend was the cockroach moving around in my ear. I instantly thought of the fact I had just been pumping hot air into my head and cooking a cockroach in my ear canal all weekend. It made me feel sick," he said to the outlet.

The roach had been inside Wedding's ear for three whole days.

The doctor was able to remove the first half of the dead cockroach from Wedding’s ear in a five-minute procedure. The second half was removed using a suction device.

"Once I knew it was a bug it all clicked together,” Wedding said to the outlet. “That's why the water would move even when I was still. It was a cockroach moving in my head."