A 16-year-old boy noticed that every time he blew his nose, a “pungent and fetid odor filled the room”. He has been dealing with nasal problems, including congestion and problems with smelling things, for years. But doctors attributed this to some type of inflammation of the sinuses, perhaps due to allergies, and sent him home with “nasal spray and antihistamine medication”, according to LiveScience.
But when the symptoms continued and the mysterious, embarrassing odor became a symptom, he did a CT scan, which revealed a small sphere lodged in his nasal cavity. In fact, it was a metal ball that hit him in the nose when he was 8 or 9 years old.
From LiveScience:
Foreign objects lodged in the nose can sometimes cause an unpleasant odor because “the foreign body blocks the natural drainage pathways in the nose, so there is an accumulation of mucus, inhaled residues and bacteria”, study co-author Dylan Z. Erwin , a medical student at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio, told Live Science. But this build-up does not always trigger fever or other signs of infection throughout the body, so the diagnosis can go undetected, said Erwin.
In addition, the pellet in the boy’s case was even more difficult to detect because, over time, it had become covered with new fabric. “Healthy-looking tissue has completely grown on it,” said Erwin. For doctors to see the pellet, that surrounding tissue had to be surgically removed, he said. …
Lead gun injuries are common in teenagers, but the current case was unique because the injury happened a long time ago and the boy had no symptoms of nasal trauma, the report said.
The boy had successfully undergone surgery to remove the sediment and “the unpleasant odor has disappeared”.
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