See? That Canadian health care system is STILL using leeches! 
Posted on 04/08/2005 6:29:53 PM PDT by QwertyKPH
Doctors have removed a leech from the nose of a 55-year-old Hong Kong woman after she swam and washed her face in a stream, a medical journal reported.
The woman went to her doctor complaining of nosebleeds and an occasional sensation that something was blocking her left nostril, the Hong Kong Medical Journal said in its April issue. Her family doctor noticed a "brownish mass" in her nostril but couldn't remove it because of heavy bleeding, the journal said.
The patient was taken to the emergency room, where doctors identified the problem as a bloodsucking leech. They had trouble pulling it out because the 5cm-long invertebrate retracted into the nostril and disappeared, the journal said.
Part of the slimy leech was in a passage of her nasal cavity and a larger segment was in her sinus cavity, the article said.
Doctors used a nasal spray to anaesthetise the dark brown leech that had a sucker on the front part of its body.
"After two minutes, the leech moved slowly out of the antrum [sinus] and was retrieved with forceps," the journal said.
The woman said that one month before her symptoms developed, she swam and washed her face in a stream while hiking. Doctors checked other members of her hiking group and found another leech in the nose of a man who washed his face in the stream, the journal said.
The article said the leech could have caused suffocation if it moved into the patient's larynx, or voice box. -- Sapa-AP
Just what the doctor ordered for a Friday night.
Hey, actually they did used to...
Well, we've all known a few leeches in our lifetimes.
"Just damn!"
See? That Canadian health care system is STILL using leeches!
feinswinesuksass wrote:
You can pick your nose
You can pick your friends
But you can't pick your friends nose.
Who'd a thunk it would be a leech story that brings in the most comments?
It's always leeches or bill clinton, hard to tell them apart.
I'll never forget going fishing in Florida, some friends
and their 12 year old son, one caught a shark that had a
remora on it and it came loose in the boat, one of the guys
grabbed it and stuck it on the bare chest of the kid.
Man, you should have heard the commotion. Oh it was great,
and even the kid got a bang out of it afterwards.
But, if I wake up one morning and find a roach on me or something, well, it will take me awhile to get back to sleep.
Yeah, it was that way in Nam, the rats would run across
your face.
post a thread about a proctologist that supports RAT candidates and watch em roll in
booger ping
Why hasn't this happened to Henry Waxman?
The next time you're on a hike in HK, don't get near the water.
Yikes!
Uh, thanks for the advice, srm913. I have to say, though, that I've never seen a leech in all the hiking I've done in Hong Kong. Illegal immigrants, yes, but not leeches.
To tet68, a lot of women in Southeast Asia working in rice paddies do get them in that other "orifice" I think you were referring to. Don't ask me how I know this.
My husband went into a muddy pond to get a cow that had gotten stuck in the mud. When he came home and took his clothes off he had about 6 leeches on his body. We both freaked out. I didn't even know we had leeches here. Glad he didn't have put his head under the water.
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