When you’re sick, having a stuffy nose is pretty much the worse: You can’t breathe, you can’t taste or smell, you can’t sleep … but thankfully, these symptoms only last a few days. Now, imagine having those symptoms for two years straight. Then, imagine being told by a doctor that the cause is a random tooth growing in your nasal cavity.
Yes, this really happened, and it’s the subject of an article in the new BMJ Case Reports—complete with photos. Here’s what happened, and how it all shook out.
A 59-year-old man was referred to the otorhinolaryngology (AKA ear-nose-throat) department at the University Hospital Aarhus in Denmark, where he told his doctors about a two-year history of nasal congestion, chronic discharge from his nose, and difficulty smelling and tasting. The symptoms occurred mainly on the left side of his nose, and he’d tried topical nasal steroids with no improvement.
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While the patient was under general anesthesia, surgeons used a tiny camera (inserted through the nose) to find the mass, and forceps to extract it. While they were at it, they also removed a nearby bone spur and straightened out the patient’s deviated septum.
The mass was sent to a lab, which confirmed that it was, indeed, a tooth. This is rare, the authors of the case report point out, occurring in just 0.1 to 1% of the general population. In fact, only 23 cases were reported in medical journals between 1959 and 2008.
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Once the tooth makes its way into the nasal cavity, it’s not just the mass itself that causes problems; the immune system, detecting something that shouldn’t be there, also triggers an inflammatory response.
And while some people with intranasal teeth can have no symptoms at all, many do report congestion, discharge, nosebleeds, facial pain, nasal swelling, or the feeling that something is stuck in their nose. (Go figure.)
“Our patient most likely had the intranasal retained tooth most of his life,” the authors wrote, “but had late onset of symptoms.” Fortunately, extraction of the tooth cleared up the man’s congestion and chronically runny nose, and he reported feeling much better just one month later.
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