Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Man's 33-year earache mystery solved after doctors pull tooth from his ear

Relief at last: Stephen Hirst (pictured) suffered decades of pain, infections and deafness until doctors found the cause of the problem - a tooth lodged in his earDaily Mail Reporter - For more than 30 years Stephen Hirst was in constant pain and partially deaf because of excruciating earache.

But that is all in the past now after doctors found a TOOTH lodged in the former miner's ear.

Now, Stephen can sleep unhindered by the intense headaches that plagued him.

But medical staff remain mystified as to how the tooth came to be jammed in the 47-year-old's ear canal in the first place. Especially as he had all his teeth taken out some time ago.

He first complained of pain in his right ear when he was a teenager and was forced to attend countless hospital appointments in an attempt to discover the cause of his mystery condition. ...

'She didn't say anything at first, she just stood there looking amazed. Then she said to me: 'Have you lost any teeth lately?' I said I'd not had any teeth in my head for years.

'The nurse said she couldn't believe what she had found in my ear and showed me the tooth. She said in 20 years she's never seen anything like it.

'I would think it's a first tooth, looking at it, because it can't be big enough to be an adult tooth. I think it's a bottom tooth, one of the front incisors.'

... Mr Hirst, from Sheffield, who has two children, had to give up work as a miner 15 years ago partly due to his ear condition.

He said he was baffled to how it got there but the most likely explanation was 'that I pushed it in when I was a kid or something.'

But he speculated: 'At school one day I was swinging between two desks.

'I fell and smashed the back of my ear. It might have happened then.' ...

via Man's 33-year earache mystery solved after doctors pull tooth from his ear | Mail Online.

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