Weird Things Found Growing Inside People

#1 Potato In Vagina

When a 22-year-old woman was hospitalized with severe abdominal pains doctors were surprised that the cause of her pain was a potato. It was in her vagina and growing. The woman told the doctors that she had put the potato in there herself because her mother had told her it was a form of contraceptive and would stop her from getting pregnant. However, the problem started when the spud sprouted roots and began to grow in her reproductive organs. The doctors managed to get the vegetable out and prevent any further damage.

#2 Tree In The Lungs

When 28-year-old Artyom Sidorkin from Russia complained of an extreme pain in his chest, doctors feared it was a tumor and warned him of the dangers he was facing. But when they operated on him, they found a 5 cm (2 inches) long fir tree growing in his lung. It was just long enough to be causing scratching on his lungs and tissue. It's believed that Sidorkin inhaled a fir seed while training in the woods with the army. If left to grow the surgeon said that Sidorkin would have died within a few months since the sapling had taken root and was sturdy.

#3 Maggots In The Head

In 2007, a man from Colorado had a terrible itch in his scalp. Although he tried all kinds of special shampoos, ointments, and other products, the itching got worse and worse until it turned into unbearable pain. When doctors finally examined his scalp, they found several botfly maggots, each about the size of a penny. After two surgeries and intense removal procedures, the man was left with a head full of pit scars. The maggots had burrowed deep into his scalp and were ready to lay eggs.

#4 Tapeworm In The Brain

Rosemary Alvarez was just 37 when an MRI scan showed a serious and difficult-to-remove a tumor in her brain. Alvarez had admitted herself to a hospital in Phoenix after experiencing some pretty worrying symptoms, such as trouble balancing, swallowing, and numbness. There was no alternative but to attempt a risky operation. It was at this point that her doctor made a discovery that would no doubt stick with him for the rest of his days.The good news was that Rosemary was not suffering from a tumor. The not-so-good news was that she had a live tapeworm in her brain. Although horrifying, this was actually better than having a tumor. The tapeworm was easier to remove and meant she wouldn't have to worry about cancer.

The most frightening thing about this story is how it got inside her head. The usual way of picking up a tapeworm is by eating undercooked pork squirming with worm larvae, which is terrifyingly common enough. But a tapeworm's favorite place to live is inside your intestines. The only way that you can get a worm in your brain, for some reason, is by ingesting human fecal matter.

#5 Ear Maggots

A patient in India who reportedly went to the doctor complaining of persistent buzzing in his ear was diagnosed with aural myasis, a condition caused by fly larvae infesting in a person's ear or nose. Dr. Vikram Yadav, the attending doctor, proceeded to remove hundreds of live maggots from his unidentified patient's ear. Yadav believes house flies likely invaded his patient's ear and laid eggs while he was sleeping. "If anybody sleeps, a child, an old person, and you see any houseflies there, put some cloth on their face so they don't enter into the orifices and lay their eggs," Yadav said.

The condition could have turned deadly, as the maggots were feeding off the patient's flesh and could be seen moving around. Yadav recorded the procedure on camera.

#6 The Unborn Fetus Twin

Growing up in Nagpur, India, Sanju Bhagat was often ridiculed for his abnormally large stomach. We all know how it is--kids can be cruel, especially when you're a man who has looked pregnant his entire life. It's kind of a horrifying irony that it was ultimately discovered he had been pregnant his entire life. Sort of. He finally did something about his situation one night when he was rushed to the hospital with shortness of breath and severe pain. When the doctors attempted to remove what they assumed was a tumor, they were mildly shocked to find a partially formed fetus. The thing had hair, a partial arm, leg, and teeth.

It's called fetus in fetu, and it basically means that Bhagat had a twin inside the womb who he absorbed like an in-vitro caged death match. Apparently, as in this case, the parasitic fetus will sometimes feed off the host until "doctors are forced to intervene."

#7 Giant Hair Ball

In 2007, an 18-year-old woman entered the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago complaining of stomach pains, vomiting and an inexplicable loss of 40 pounds. Losing that kind of weight all at once usually means you've come down with something seriously dangerous. An x-ray was taken, and they found a "large, dark mass."

When they operated to remove what they assumed was a tumor, they instead pulled out a 10-pound hairball. Yes. A ball of hair. It was over a foot long. The woman had been chewing the ends of her own hair for over 12 years and it had formed a hairball in her stomach.

#8 Flowers In The Attic

A 16-month-year-old baby girl named Ranran was rushed to the hospital after screaming in pain after suffering for months with a terrible earache. After spotting something sticking out of the girls ear, the mother tried to pull it out but could not reach it. Upon arrival at the hospital, doctors discovered that a flowering dandelion was growing in the girls ear canal. Although it was only 1 inch in length, the girl required surgery to get it removed or she would risk a blood clot and hearing loss.

#9 The Monster Tumor

Nicola Ellington and her unborn baby almost died when a "monster tumor" in her chest began feeding off her pregnancy hormones. The monster tumor was so named because it was covered in hair and teeth and was thought to have been dormant in Ellington's body since she was born. When she became pregnant the tumor grew rapidly. In three months it was bigger than a watermelon and was crushing her lungs and heart, cutting off her oxygen supply.

Colloquially known as "The Monster Tumor", the teratoma is a very specific type of tumor with tissue or organ components resembling normal derivatives of more than one germ layer. The tumors have been reported to contain hair, teeth, bone and sometimes even more complex organs such as eyes, torsos or limbs. Allegedly, there have even been cases of the teratoma trying to possess the host and attack its brain.

#10 Cockroach In The Ear

Hendrik Helmer of Darwin, Australia will probably be sleeping with earplugs from now on after he woke up with a cockroach in his ear canal. Feeling a considerable amount of pain but not knowing exactly what it was that was inside his ear he suspected it was a small insect, Helmer grabbed a vacuum cleaner and tried to suck the bug out of his ear. This seemed to make the roach angrier, and the pain in his ear got worse. Fearing it was a famous poisonous Australian spider Helmer wound up at Royal Darwin Hospital, where doctors first tried pouring olive oil down his ear canal. That only caused the cockroach to burrow deeper into Helmer's ear. Doctors then used forceps to finally extract what turned out to be a huge 1.5-inch roach from Helmer's ear.

#11 Mouth Full Of Guava

A 36-year-old man shocked his dentist when he visited the office complaining of a toothache. When the dentist extracted the decaying molar they discovered that the cause of the man's excruciating pain was a sprouting guava plant which had been growing out of a cavity in the molar. The man's teeth were so decayed that the dentist believed the plant was able to germinate freely, causing havoc throughout the man's entire mouth.

#12 Fish In The Bladder

A 14-year-old boy in India went to the hospital after experiencing pain, and difficulty going to the bathroom, despite having no history of urological issues. Various tests were run, and the doctors were eventually able to pinpoint the source of his distress: There was a tiny fish living inside the boy's bladder. But what really makes this story is the little boy's excuse as to how the fish ended up there: He was in the middle of cleaning his fish tank when he needed to go to the bathroom.