Hendrik Helmer has taken out the unofficial title of having the largest cockroach removed from a human ear in Darwin.

He says dislodging the 2cm giant at Royal Darwin Hospital caused him agonising pain.

The cockroach took about 10 minutes to die after it was removed from his ear.

Mr Helmer, from the Darwin suburb of Karama, said his ordeal began early on Wednesday morning when he was woken up at about 2:30am by a sharp pain in his right ear.

He immediately thought some type of insect may have crawled into it while he slept.

He said the pain was intense and despite a few bouts of relief began to get worse.

"I was hoping it was not a poisonous spider ... I was hoping it didn't bite me," he said.

After trying to suck the insect out with a vacuum cleaner, he tried squirting water from a tap into his ear to flush it out.

His efforts stirred up the insect.

"Whatever was in my ear didn't like it at all," he said.

As his pain increased, Mr Helmer, who works as a supervisor at a warehouse, roused his flatmate to take him to Royal Darwin Hospital, where he was quickly seen by a doctor.

Mr Helmer said the doctor put oil down the ear canal, which forced the still-unidentified insect to crawl in deeper but eventually it began to die.

"Near the 10 minute mark ... somewhere about there, he started to stop burrowing but he was still in the throes of death twitching," he said.

At that point the doctor put forceps into his ear and pulled out the cockroach.

"She [the doctor] said, 'you know how I said a little cockroach, that may have been an underestimate'," he said.

"They said they had never pulled an insect this large out of someone's ear," Mr Helmer said.

Despite his ordeal, Mr Helmer says he does not believe he has a cockroach problem in his home and he won't be conducting an eradication program.

He also does not intend to sleep any differently or take precautions against it happening again, although he said friends had since told him they were so freaked out by his experience they had begun sleeping with headphones on or earplugs in.

Mr Helmer is not expected to suffer any long-term effects from his ordeal, although by Friday he was still having trouble with his balance and experiencing twinges of pain when he moved his jaw.