"I Can't Taste Ice Cream"

Abstract

Auricular foreign bodies are usually presented to the emergency department in an easily recognizable fashion. We report the case of a 16-year-old male who presented to the emergency department with complaints of unilateral tinnitus and dysgeusia. He denied any history of injury except for falling from his bike in the woods earlier that day. On examination, a wooden foreign body was found in the external auditory canal. A computed tomography scan revealed a 3-cm-long twig that pierced the middle ear disrupting the ossicles. He was taken to the operating room for removal and microscopic evaluation. On evaluation, the chorda tympani nerve was found to be severed along with disruption of the ossicles. This is an unusual presentation for an aural foreign body, and the resulting injury of the chorda tympani is not well published. One should consider the possibility of injury to the middle and inner ear and perform the necessary clinical evaluation before and after removal of aural foreign bodies.