A Wallington woman who complained about pain in her ear was given the shock of her life after a doctor discovered a spider was living inside her head.

Angela Colborn, of Harcourt Road, grew concerned when her face turned red and her ear began to swell shortly after she dropped her daughter off at Holy Trinity School on Wednesday, April 26.

After she complained to a pharmacist about the pain she was told to go straight to Epsom and St Helier’s A&E department.

Mrs Colborn said: “I thought it was a bit extreme when they told me to go, but I knew something was in there I could feel it moving around.

“Waiting in A&E was horrible because I could feel it wriggling around inside and I just wanted to jump, but you can’t really do that there so I just had to sit there.”

But when she was seen by a nurse she was told there was nothing inside the ear canal.

Mrs Colborn added: “When I saw the nurse, Jaqi, she said there was nothing in there. I was about to leave when I felt it wriggle again and I asked her to have another look, but she still didn’t find anything.

“Then a doctor came in and laid me down to have another look and that’s when he found it. I just told him to get it out.”

The doctor was unable to pull the arachnid out of the hairdresser’s ear with forceps before Jaqi suggested they use oil to drown the bug.

The 38-year-old said: “I laid on my side as they tried to flush it out. Then we looked in the bowl and saw two legs in there. There was no body or anything, but the itch disappeared and the doctor told me it was dead.

“They did such a great job. I don’t know how Jaqi managed it, if I was her I would be scared that it would leap out onto my face. She really had that personal touch throughout.”

When she visited St George’s Hospital, in Wandsworth, the next day to check whether the spider was still lodged inside Mrs Colborn was told the creepy crawly was no longer in her ear.

She said: “It must have just fallen out before I went to the hospital. I think it must have gone into my hair as I walked down the alleyway between Bute Road and Park Road to drop my daughter off at school and went into what it thought was a warm hole.

“it’s made me a bit paranoid now. I use the torch on my phone to look in my ear and under the pillows before I go to bed just in case.”