And Finally... Man's deafness cured after tooth removed from his ear

By James Shepherd on Oct 19, 10 09:28 AM in News

For more than 30 years Stephen Hirst coped with agonising earache and infections which baffled doctors and left him partially deaf.

But hospital staff probed again and finally got to the root of the problem... a tooth jammed in his right ear canal. Now Stephen, 47, can sleep properly for the first since he was 14 and his intense headaches have disappeared.

But it is still a mystery how a tooth - thought to be a child's incisor - ended up in his ear.

Stephen revealed: "I decided to have one last try to sort it out. The nurse used a microscope then tweezers and pulled out the tooth. She stood there stunned. I don't know why they didn't find it before."

Former miner Stephen, of Sheffield, can hardly hear in his right ear but he is delighted the pain has gone.

The dad-of-two thinks the tooth could have lodged itself in his ear after a couple of school accidents.

Another possibility is it just worked loose from his mouth and made its way through his head.

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