A Medical Case Study; Katie Holley and The Cockroach Experience

It is not uncommon for strange insects to walk pass you when you are lying down on the bed especially ants, but it becomes a thing of worry when they begin to find their way into the holes in your body like your mouth, nostrils and the eyes. This could lead to a panic state and the first thought would be to remove them.

On April 14, 2018 Katie Holley woke up to find that there was something in her ear. She was worried and hurried to the bathroom to get t off. She took a cotton swab or cotton bud or maybe some of you might know it as Q-tip after which she poked it into her ear. The first rule of cotton swab is to not poke your ears with them or any other thing whatsoever. She quickly picked it and poked the thing in her ear but quickly realized that it moved in. She was scared that it could be a living thing and so decided to get it out slowly and she was able to get two brown legs.

She called her husband as she was scared that it could move deeper and she couldn't identify the thing that came out of her ears. She was able to see that they were the legs of a cockroach. They had just moved into the home and they noticed that the house had a very terrible cockroach infestation. They just need to remove the cockroach from her ear so it doesn't become a more serious medical issue.

They had employed someone who would spray the house and the person had did a good job which the couples were fine with and believed they didn't have anything to worry about until this incident happened. The husband began to use a pair of tweezers to try to get the cockroach out of his wife's ear. My personal believe will be to visit the hospital or call emergency but they decided to go on the adventure themselves. There is a high chance that Katie might her poked her hands into her ear when she first noticed something funny because this is something that will happen out of reflex.

While cockroaches spend a numerous amount of time cleaning themselves up they have bacteria and other microbes in them. So in all they did, I believe they should be scared of rupturing the cockroach in the ear, or injuring their eardrum in the process of doing all they are doing. Her husband managed to get 2 legs out of the ear and it was at this time they knew they had to visit the hospital.

They drove down to the hospital and she got to the Emergency Department where she explained to a person what happen and he asked a nurse to check with an otoscope to confirm and she affirmed there was a roach in her ear. You want to ask why they didn't just believe her immediately I suppose. The reason is because people can come to the hospital with fabricated stories and so proper checking needed to be done. Also, the doctors wanted to eliminate a case of Delusional Parasitosis where patients believe they have insects or parasites in them even when there tests to confirm shows there are no insects or parasites.

The nurse tried to get her vitals but it wasn't possible as it was extremely high. She was frustrated and yelled at the nurse that she had BP and with her current condition, there was no way she wasn't going to be seeing a high reading. She was then asked to lay on a bed with the affected ear facing up. The doctor checked again and found the cockroach then requested for lidocaine HCL which is a numbing agent in minor procedures. The essence of this for Katie's case was to numb the ear and kill the cockroach in it.

When Lidocaine was administered, the cockroach began to behave in an unexplainable manner as the cockroach was to die. At this point, the cockroach would emit all sort of bacteria, fungi, and stuff but according to Mayo Clinic, using baby oil or mineral oil is a better way to removing insect from the ear. The doctor removed the roach and told her that she was good to go home but gave her oral antibiotics and eardrop.

The couple decided to go get earplugs from Walmart so they do not experience such again. When she got home, she could not sleep as a result of paranoia but she managed to get a good rest. After 24 hours, the numbness was gone and she noticed she still experienced pain and soreness when she yawned or opened her mouth to strain it. After a week, she still felt the pain and it became scary for her as she didn't know what was causing her pain.

Soon she went to visit her family doctor and narrated the entire event to her doctor who empathized with her and decided to give it a check. After several flushes, they decided to use an otoscope to check again and this time theory saw a cockroach leg. This meant that the doctor didn't completely remove the cockroach from her ears and this was why she was in pain. The doctor removed the leg and flushed the ear but at the end still saw more body parts of the cockroach and there were still some left.

The doctor booked an appointment for her with the ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat) doctor. The ENT doctor was able to help remove it even though she wasn't given a numbing agent. She was able to feel the spikes as they were pulled out of her inner ears. When the doctor was gone, she was declared free from cockroach.