Man Gets Lung Infection From Sniffing His Own Smelly Socks

A man has been rushed to hospital after he developed a lung infection from sniffing his dirty socks.

Yep, the unnamed man from China was hospitalised after he was found to have a severe fungal infection in his lungs, which is understood to have been caused by smelling his socks at the end of a long day at work.

According to reports, the man from Zhangzhou, in South-eastern China's Fujian province, would regularly take off his socks and give them a good sniff.

But the rather bizarre habit led to him catching an infection from a fungus that had developed in his footwear from his sweaty feet, which spread to his lungs after he breathed in the spores.

After being admitted to hospital, an x-ray confirmed him to be suffering from a severe lung infection and he has been kept in for treatment.

Asia Wire

They reportedly confirmed it was caused by his frequent sniffing of his own socks.

Earlier this month a man tragically died after coughing up part of his lung. The report, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that the 36-year-old had been admitted to hospital with heart failure, but died during his first week of treatment.

According to the NEJM, he had had a pacemaker fitted due to history of poor cardiovascular health.

The unnamed patient was being treated at the intensive care unit at the University of California San Francisco Medical Centre, which was where reports say he started coughing violently.

During one of the coughing fits, the man eventually coughed up a bronchial tree, which is a series of tubes that distribute air from the windpipe to the lungs.

He sadly died a week later.

Reports say the man had a rare ejection fraction deficiency (which relates to how much blood is pumped with each contraction), which meant his organ was operating at around 50 percent less than the normal rate.

"His medical history included heart failure with an ejection fraction of 20 percent, bioprosthetic aortic-valve replacement for bicuspid aortic stenosis, endovascular stenting of an aortic aneurysm, and placement of a permanent pacemaker for complete heart block," the NEJM report says.

While being treated in hospital, he started coughing up blood and mucus, which apparently increased the strain on his lungs, and doctors had started treating him with oxygen tanks.

After coughing up the bronchial tree, doctors immediately intubated him and performed a bronchoscopy, but he later died from heart failure complications ('volume overload and poor cardiac output'), despite the placement of the ventricular assist device.

Topics: World News, Interesting

Dominic Smithers

Dominic graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in French and History. Like you, Dom has often questioned how much use a second language has been. Well, after stints working at the Manchester Evening News, the Accrington Observer and the Macclesfield Express, along with never setting foot in France, he realised the answer is surprisingly little. But I guess, c'est la vie. Contact us at [email protected]

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