Man lived with a 'green ear' for 20 years after doctors blamed it on scar tissue. Then a routine dental X-ray accidentally solved the mystery
'That is the freaking back of the earring in my ear, and it's been there for the past 20 years,' Aitia gasped
Every time someone made eye contact with Matt Aitia (@mattaitia), their gaze would instantly shift to his ear. Reason? His green ear. For 20 years, the Toronto-based film director couldn't explain why his left ear remained green after a childhood piercing, even after he removed the earring. Whenever he visited the hospital, seeking an explanation, the doctors brushed him off, saying it was just scar tissue. However, years later, a routine check-up finally solved the mystery when a scan revealed a butterfly-shaped metal clasp from an old earring inside his ear. The video shared on September 11, 2026, has received over 7 million views on Instagram.
The shocking scan report
When Aitia was just 10 years old, he got an ear piercing, and it soon became infected. It was so painful that he removed the earring and consulted several doctors about the strange lump and the skin discoloration in his left ear. However, everyone dismissed it as scar tissue until Aitia visited a dentist and got an X-ray years later as an adult. The scan report showed a tiny foreign metallic object, a butterfly backing the old earring, lodged deep inside the tissue. "That is the freaking back of the earring in my ear, and it's been there for the past 20 years," Aitia gasped. As his video went viral, a Toronto-based facial surgeon, Dr. Rui Han Liu, reached out to him via Instagram and offered to perform the metal-removal surgery.
Dr. Liu details the surgery
On September 14, Aitia posted another video, sharing the call he had with Dr. Liu. She explained that the butterfly-shaped piece might have fallen into the ear via an earring he wore. While the original infection healed, the piece lay dormant in his earlobe, and eventually the skin grew around it as the body’s protective mechanism. Next, she described the procedure she’d use to take out the metal clasp. At first, Dr. Liu said she would numb the ear and then make an incision on the back of the earlobe. She would then remove the earring clutch along with the guard tissue and close it up with some stitches.
'What about the color?'
When asked about the color, Dr. Liu explained that it can be treated with a laser treatment. “Because the color is from pigment of the piercing kind of leaching into the skin itself. So it's like deposited into a layer underneath the skin in what we call the dermis,s usually like the ones people use for tattoo removal,” she explained. Aitia has booked a surgery appointment for Friday at 10 am, and he expects the surgery to go well.
Barbie’s green ear syndrome
Aitia’s green ear is reminiscent of Barbie's Green Ear Syndrome, where the doll’s ear turns green due to a chemical reaction between her metal earrings and plastic body. In the human body, the prolonged presence of the butterfly-shaped metal fragment likely reacted with oxygen and bodily fluids, causing oxidation and forming green copper salts. The danger was compounded by epithelization, a process in which dead skin cells completely encapsulate the metal, cutting off local blood supply and destroying the skin’s natural melanin, as described in Advances in Wound Care. In fact, foreign objects in the ear make up nearly 11% of ENT cases, a study noted.
'That's crazy'
Meanwhile, viewers were surprised to see how the entire butterfly got absorbed by the ear, so it remained inside Aitia for so many years. @martiancrochet said, “Stop! That's a huge medical failure for sure. A simple X-ray would have prevented this.” Others asked him to record the removal surgery and share it online. @pinkdragons17 commented, "Struggling to grasp this. First, a whole backing made its way into a tiny piercing hole? Second, neither you, a parent, nor a doctor could feel that 'ball' wasn’t soft like scar tissue, but hard because it was metal? What?"
You can follow Matt Aitia (@mattaitia) on Instagram for filming-related content.
More on Scoop Upworthy
Boy suffered for 3 years without a diagnosis until his mom turned to AI
Share on Facebook
