No, this isn't a case of a kid sticking a tooth into his nose and getting it stuck. This is a tooth that grew up into a guy's nose. Basically, he was close to being a human Narwhal. You're welcome for the nightmares.


After a 22-year-old found himself suffering from nose bleeds in his left nostril once or twice a month for three years, he decided to seek medical attention. According to the report published by the American Journal of Case Reports in July, a "nasal endoscopy showed a white cylindrical bony mass 1 cm long arising from the floor of the nose." After a dental consultation, the diagnosis of an extra tooth growing in the nose was given. An extra tooth, because, as the report states, the man already had a "well aligned complete set of teeth for his age."

The patient went under anesthesia, and the tooth was removed with no complications. Except for the trauma of learning that a tooth grew in his nose.


Apparently, between 0.15 and 3.9% of people have extra teeth, which can develop upside down and grow upwards. Dr. John Hellstein, a dentist and professor of oral pathology at the University of Iowa, wasn't involved in the case, but told Live Science that the kind of extra tooth the patient had, a mesiodens, is a common type of extra tooth and that a third of them develop upside down. Even so, Hellstein says this case is unusual:

It's an unusual case of an extra tooth — certainly, the most impressive intranasal photo I think I've ever seen of one. I've never seen the tooth actually in there. ... We see several cases each year [of extra teeth]. But for it to have erupted up and through the nasal floor — that's unusual.

"Unusual" seems like an understatement.

Top image from the case report "Recurrent Epistaxis Caused by an Intranasal Supernumerary Tooth in a Young Adult" by Hamed O. Al Dhafeeri, Abdulmajid Kavarodi, Khalil Al Shaikh, Ahmed Bukhari, Omair Al Hussain, and Ahmed El Baramawy in American Journal of Case Reports.


[Live Science via Quite Interesting News]