A mother-of-two has been given a new lease on life after doctors made a startling discovery: a ball of surgical tape that had been lodged in her nose for an estimated 35 years.
A Lifetime of Laboured Breathing
Candela Reybaud, 35, had struggled to breathe properly for as long as she could remember. She explained that air barely passed through her right nostril, forcing her to breathe through her mouth during physical activity and even while she slept. The health influencer, who has amassed 105,000 followers on Instagram, admitted she had simply grown accustomed to this being her normal.
"I never paid much attention to it because I got used to breathing that way from a young age," Candela said. She also noted that in her childhood, there was far less awareness about the serious consequences of chronic mouth breathing.
The Investigation and Shocking Discovery
The mystery began to unravel about a year ago when Candela suffered a severe bout of sinusitis. Initially, she did not pursue a CT scan. However, when intense pain in her right cheek returned a month ago, she decided to take definitive action.
During an examination, a doctor suspected a polyp and ordered the CT scan she had previously skipped. The scan results revealed a "partially calcified focal image of approximately 8x6mm", which was suggestive of a rhinolith – an encapsulated foreign body.
An endoscopic examination located the obstruction, and after almost an hour of careful work, the doctor successfully extracted the object with forceps. Both Candela and her doctor were initially baffled by the strange object.
"At first, we didn't understand what it was," Candela recalled. "But when I was able to examine it more closely, I quickly realised it was a piece of adhesive tape folded and rolled up."
A Mystery Solved and A New Beginning
The only logical explanation Candela and her family could piece together points back to her birth in 1990. Her mother remembered that Candela experienced "an episode of respiratory distress" in the neonatal unit. The theory is that the tape was left behind after medical staff inserted a nasal tube, becoming an unintended souvenir from her first days of life.
The change for Candela was immediate and profound. "There's still some swelling from the time the foreign object was there, but I feel like I breathe better every day," she explained. "It's going to take a little longer for the swelling to completely subside, but the difference is already very noticeable."
Expressing her relief, she added, "I'm still surprised, but also very relieved to have finally found the cause." At 35, she is now discovering what it is like to breathe normally through both nostrils for the first time.
After sharing her bizarre story on social media, Candela was overwhelmed by a wave of global support. Her experience has served as a powerful reminder. "It made me realise how important it is to pay attention to symptoms that we sometimes consider 'normal'," she stated. "If my experience helps someone else seek medical advice in time or stop normalising lifelong symptoms, then all of this will have been worth it."
