Woman had rustling sounds in ear for 4 days, doctors find spider crawling inside

The woman's eardrum was not damaged despite the spider's entry into her ear. (Representational image)

A woman in Taiwan was found with a spider crawling in her ear canal, four days after she started experiencing abnormal sounds in her ear, according to a recently published report.

The 64-year-old woman woke up with a feeling of a creature moving inside her left ear, said doctors who wrote the medical report which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Incessant beating, clicking, and rustling sounds inside the ear meant she had sleepless nights.

When doctors at the otolaryngology clinic at Municipal Hospital in Tainan City examined her ears, a small spider was seen moving inside the outer canal of the left ear, they said in the report. It wasn’t just the eight-legged creature, doctors also found the spider’s exoskeleton inside the ear canal.

Thankfully, the woman’s eardrum was not damaged.

The doctors then removed the spider and its exoskeleton from the woman’s ears using a suction cannula placed through an otoscope.

A woman with hypertension presented to the clinic with a 4-day history of abnormal sounds in her ear. On examination, a small spider was seen moving within the external auditory canal of the left ear. The molted exoskeleton of the spider was also present. https://t.co/dye2sbbiL9 pic.twitter.com/SfeNBBGQS8

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— NEJM (@NEJM) October 25, 2023

The woman, who has hypertension, had instant relief after the spider was removed from her ear.

"She didn't feel pain because the spider was very small. It's just about 2 to 3 millimetres," NBC News quoted Dr Tengchin Wang, the report's co-author and the head of the otolaryngology department at the Taiwan hospital, as saying.

A similar case had emerged from China earlier this year when a woman who complained of pain in her ear and a constant buzzing sound was found to have a spider inside her ear. The spider had even created a web. Doctors at Huidong County People’s Hospital were able to remove the spider safely. To the relief of everyone, the spider was non-poisonous and the woman had suffered minor damage to the ear canal.