CHENNAI (THE PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER /ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - Doctors in India faced one of their biggest challenges when they operated on a patient and removed a live cockroach from her skull.

According to The New Indian Express, a 42-year old woman in Chennai was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday (Feb 1) after she felt "strange" sensations around her nose and eyes.

Before she experienced the symptoms, she recalled that an insect crept into her nostril, making its way inside her head. She tried to blow her nose to free the cockroach but it successfully climbed up her nose.

The results of her nasal endoscopy displayed the menacing cockroach sitting on her skull between her eyes for 12 hours.

"This is the first such case I have seen in my three decades of practice," Dr Shankar of the Stanley Medical College Hospital told the news site.

The woman said that before she approached the doctors for help, she suffered from burning sensations and inexplicable pains.

"I could not explain the feeling but I was sure it was some insect. There was a tingling, crawling sensation. Whenever it moved, it gave me a burning sensation in my eyes," she said.

"I spent the entire night in discomfort, sitting up and waiting for dawn to go to Stanley hospital after getting the reference of a doctor from my employer," she told local news sites.

The Times of India reported that the bug clung to the tissues even if it was vacuumed with a suction apparatus.

"It was alive. And it didn't seem to want to come out," said Shankar. "We had to use a combination of suction and forceps to finally pull it out."

After 45 minutes, the live cockroach finally came out from the abyss.

It was also the first time the doctors from the said hospital removed a "huge" insect from a human head.