Mysterious foul odour caused by BB pellet
This article highlights the case of a teenage boy who struggled with nasal congestion and foul odour when he blew his nose for almost 8 years. He first visited a doctor when he was 15 years old and told them that even his sense of smell was now reduced. It was later found that the pungent smell was because of a BB pellet stuck in the teen’s nose.
Doctors performed an endoscopic examination of the patient’s nose which showed “turbinate hypertrophy”, an enlargement of the passageways of the nose. For treatment, doctors prescribed the patient with a nasal spray and antihistamine medication. Similarly, asked him to return for a follow-up after 4 weeks.
Despite asking him to return for a follow-up after 4 weeks, he came after a year.
Doctors advised a CT scan which showed a spherical structure, measuring 9 mm in the nasal cavity. The patient underwent surgery for removal of the foreign object, which was discovered to be a metallic BB Pellet.
How did the pellet get there?
On questioning, the parents revealed that their son had been shot by a pellet gun in the nose when he was around 8 or 9 years old. There was no pain at the time the incident happened. Therefore, the parents didn’t find it necessary to seek medical help. Foreign objects lodged in the nasal cavity can block the natural drainage pathway, causing a build-up of mucus, debris and bacteria. According to the study co-author Dylan Z. Erwin, the pellet was quite difficult to retrieve in this case. “It had become lodged in the floor of the nose beneath a structure called the inferior turbinate. It was essentially so tightly wedged, that blowing the nose didn’t remove it and it was too far back to be easily seen,” he added further.
There is a risk of a number of different complications including infections in the jaws or eyes, when a foreign body is stuck in the nasal cavity for a long period of time. Fortunately, in this case the teen did not experience any such symptoms and recovered without any complications.
References
A Mysterious Odor After Nose Blowing https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaotolaryngology/article-abstract/2776740
