Man in China found with cockroach in his airway, suffers persistent coughs & bad breath

Cockroach crawls into man’s airway, causing frequent coughing & bad breath

A 58-year-old man from Hainan, China recently found himself faced with one of our worst nightmares — a cockroach had crawled inside his throat and lodged itself in his trachea.

After days of discomfort and persistent coughing, the patient sought help from the Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine at the First Affiliated Hospital of Hainan Medical University.

Cockroach crawls into man’s throat in his sleep

According to the Chinese news site 南海网, the 58-year-old recounted that three days earlier, he had felt a bug crawl into his nostril during his sleep, causing him to start coughing.

However, since the coughing wasn’t very severe, he didn’t pay much attention to it when he woke up the next day.

Later, however, he started experiencing persistent cough, yellow phlegm, and a noticeable cockroach odour in his mouth, which prompted him to seek medical treatment.

When the man visited the Ear, Nose, and Throat department, no foreign object was found in his upper respiratory tract, suggesting that the foreign object might have been in the lower respiratory tract, lodged in the trachea.

Associate Chief Physician Dr Lin Ling told reporters that such cases of foreign objects in the respiratory tract are rare.

Doctor removes cockroach using electronic bronchoscope

Dr Lin performed a chest scan on the patient, which led to finding a foreign object in the respiratory tract of his right lung.

“The patient was very uncomfortable, so we promptly performed a preoperative bronchoscopy to assess any contraindications,” the doctor said. A bronchoscopy is a procedure that uses a thin tube to look into a patient’s respiratory tract.

The following day, the patient underwent the procedure under local anaesthesia.

During the procedure, the medical team was able to clearly identify the object in the respiratory tract: a cockroach wrapped in a lot of phlegm.

After suctioning the surrounding phlegm, the doctors were able to fully see and take out the cockroach after three tries.

They cleaned the area thoroughly, and after the surgery, the patient felt much better with less coughing and yellow phlegm, with just a faint odour remaining.

After five days of treatment, the patient started to recover well and was very pleased with the results.

Also read: Man in Taiwan gets coconut stuck in rectum, visits hospital after he struggles to pee

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Featured image adapted from 南海网.