Nghe An: A 5cm long leech was found living in the nose of a 57-year-old woman.

On February 9, after a week of nasal congestion and continuous bleeding, Ms. Truong Thi T. (residing in Chau Hong commune, Quy Hop, Nghe An) went to a local medical facility for examination. The initial diagnosis was that the clinic's doctor determined that there was a foreign object inside her nose, so she used an endoscope to remove the object.

Doctors later discovered a leech living in the woman's nose.

A 5cm leech lived in a patient's nose. Photo: Phan Giang

“A 5cm long, live leech was removed from the nose of this female patient immediately after being discovered,” said Dr. Nguyen Hong Vui, who is working at this clinic. He added that because the patient lives in the mountains, there are many leeches. When going into the forest, bathing, drinking river water, it is easy for leeches to crawl into and reside in the body.

According to patient T, not long ago, when she went to the forest, she used stream water to drink. It can be squeezed onto living people from here.

Previously, in May 2018, in Que Phong district, doctors also successfully removed two leeches that had been living in the noses of two patients in the area for a long time. One male patient said that the leech had crawled into his nose while bathing in the river more than a month ago. The other patient said that two weeks before, while herding buffalo, he drank stream water and the creature crawled into his nose but did not know it. Afterwards, he often sneezed and had nosebleeds.