'I thought I was going deaf… but had a LEGO brick stuck in my ear for 20 YEARS
By JOHN JAMES
A student who believed he was going deaf woke in the middle of the night with his left ear in agony.
Darren McConachie, 30, from Glasgow, sat up in bed feeling a surge of pressure in the side of his head. Then, to his horror, he felt something dislodge inside his ear and start to move.
The journalism undergraduate at Edinburgh Napier University had recently seen the doctor about his worrying hearing loss and been prescribed antibiotics, assuming it was an ear infection.
But, he says nothing could have prepared him for what turned out to be the true root cause.
Darren said: 'I thought my ear had ruptured. The pressure kept building and building. It was unbearable.
'Then I felt something small and hard sort of pop out. I felt the object and I realised it was loose. I thought it was a piece of my inner ear – I was absolutely terrified.
'But as I held the little object in my hand – using my phone torch in the dark – I couldn't believe what I was looking at. A tiny piece of pink Lego, covered in wax.'
With the pain and pressure gone, and sound back in his left ear, Darren's immediate relief turned to confusion.
A student who believed he was going deaf woke in the middle of the night with his left ear in agony
Darren McConachie, 30, from Glasgow , sat up in bed feeling a surge of pressure in the side of his head
Darren, who was 24 at the time, said: 'I hadn't played with Lego for years, not since I was a wee boy. I didn't really play with it after the age of four or five, I much preferred wrestling figures or playing football with my brothers.
'It must have been around the Millennium when I last built anything with Lego. I don't remember sticking the brick in my ear - but however it got there, I reckon it was lodged there for the best part of 20 years.
'For most of my life I had no problems with my hearing, that was only something that started to happen when I got into my twenties. I genuinely had no clue it was in my ear all that time.'
A return visit to his local GP left the doctor speechless as Darren produced the children's play piece from his pocket and enquired as to whether that was the root cause of his hearing issue.
Darren recalls: 'My doctor just sat in silence for a moment, genuinely dumbfounded.
'She told me it wasn't the first time she'd seen a piece of Lego in this circumstance but it was the first piece she'd ever heard of that had been buried in someone's ear for so long.
'But from looking me over, she was confident there were no more pieces of Lego stuck in my head.'
Unsurprisingly, Darren's own family and friends thought he was on the wind up until he produced the minute Lego piece.
Darren said: 'In fairness, my brothers were actually great, they could tell I was in a lot of pain and actually went and got my prescription for me because I was so exhausted.
'But after just a few days of taking the medicine, the Lego popped out and suddenly I felt like I was in my own 'who-dunnit'.
Unsurprisingly, Darren's own family and friends thought he was on the wind up until he produced the minute Lego piece
'My brothers enjoyed making a few jokes about the situation and we all wondered who'd put it in my ear, I don't think that I would have put a piece of Lego in my own ear.'One of my brothers looked more sheepish than the others but I can't say with absolute certainty that he did it.'
Darren added: 'My hearing today is actually very good, usually I can hear things which other people can't and sometimes I believe it might be down to the piece of Lego just clearing out all the gunk.'
Darren McConachie, who now works in PR, is speaking out now to raise awareness of Well Pharmacy's new ear wax removal service which aims to help patients hear again.
The new service aims to highlight the severity of ear wax and how it can have an effect on day-to-day life by stopping patients from living their best life.
Well Pharmacy experts have warned modern appliances like earphones can be responsible for people's inability to hear, because they push wax further back into the ear canal.
Now, the UK's biggest independent pharmacy, has unveiled new technology which can suction ears to allow for the safe removal of ear wax.
Well Pharmacy's ear wax removal service uses the latest TympaHealth technology that provides high definition imagery and video to look inside the ear. This allows for an accurate ear and hearing health assessment with safe, and gentle ear wax microsuction and a hearing check.
Unlike traditional methods, which rely on water irrigation, microsuction is a quicker, mess-free and medically recommended procedure that provides instant relief.
Talking about Well Pharmacy's micro suction service, George Sandhu, Deputy Superintendent Pharmacist, said: 'For too long, blocked ears have been seen as an issue affecting older people, but we're seeing more and more younger patients come in with related ear and hearing health challenges.
'By launching this service, we hope to help adults of all ages with their ear and hearing health.'
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