A woman documented her four-day struggle to retrieve the back of an earring that had fallen into her ear canal. After it was dislodged, she immediately placed it back on her ear.

• A TikToker went viral with a series about trying to retrieve an earring that fell into her ear.
• Krystyn Bondad shared her dayslong effort to get it out, including a visit to the doctor and the ER.

Krystyn Bondad was on vacation in Mexico when disaster struck. Last Friday, while lying down to sleep, one of her helix piercings became itchy. She went to remove it, but as she unscrewed it, the back of the earring slipped and fell into her ear canal.

For the next four days, the 21-year-old from Louisiana shared her agonizing struggle to get the earring piece out in a series of TikToks that have amassed more than one million views.

She posted frequent updates — including an in-house doctor visit and a trip to the emergency room — as anxious viewers prayed for her recovery and said this had unlocked a new fear about earrings.

While the earring piece eventually and miraculously fell out, Bondad told Insider that she had already put it back into her ear because she was paranoid that it or another earring could get stuck again.

Bondad tried everything to get the earring piece out

After the back of the earring fell in on Friday night, Bondad said she immediately tried to flip over and shake it out, but to no avail. She also tried to bounce up and down and hold her nose while exhaling. She eventually called her mother, who advised her to run warm water in her ear, but that also had no effect.

"The trip was going wonderfully before this occurrence," Bondad told Insider. "It actually happened at the end of a built-in relaxation day."

They ended up calling an in-house doctor, who used an otoscope and a camera with an attachment normally used to scoop out ear wax, but that didn't work either. Around 4 a.m., they drove an hour to the emergency room but were told they would have to wait an hour to see a specialist. They ultimately returned to the hotel because they had an excursion the next morning that they needed to show up on time for.

Bondad said medical professionals had not given her an official diagnosis but confirmed the piece was definitely in her ear canal. She said they called her situation "unique" and didn't know what to do.

Bondad, meanwhile, tried numerous other home methods, like using peroxide, a vacuum suction with a bottle, and a magnet to try to extract it. She said this might have moved the earring piece a bit, but nothing got it out.

Thankfully, Bondad added, the trapped earring piece didn't cause her much pain after the first day when she felt a slightly dull, uncomfortable sensation that would get sharper when she yawned.

Throughout the ordeal, Bondad posted frequent update videos, worrying and horrifying commenters about the prospect. Some viewers also suggested other tips to try to help her remove the earring back, including using tweezers or pulling her ear open while lying on her side.

Some said they had also experienced this unique horror.

"This happened to me & I made it worse lmao," one person commented on her first video. "I eventually had to give in and go to the emergency department to get it out."

"My whole earring got stuck inside my earlobe once," another person wrote. "It was traumatizing."

When the piece finally fell out of Bondad's ear… and when Bondad promptly put her earring back in

On Tuesday, four days after it fell in, the earring piece finally and miraculously slipped out of her ear while Bondad was napping. She said she heard a sound like water coming out of her ears, and the earring piece was on her pillow.

"ATTENTION EVERYONE!! IT FELL OUT!!!" Bondad wrote on-screen in a celebratory TikTok, beaming with joy and holding up the tiny-gold-earring fragment. "Winner goes to whoever told me to lay on my side and let gravity do its thing <3."

"YAY GOOD FOR U GIRLIE," one person commented.

While the saga has been stressful for Bondad and her viewers, she told Insider that she had already put the earring back in.

"Much to my mother's dismay, I already put the earring back in as soon as the earring back came out," she said. "I had an open hole, and I needed the hole to be filled with an earring so that my piercing wouldn't close."

But she said also planned to eventually switch her earrings to hoops that didn't have backs so she wouldn't have to stress about them accidentally falling into her ear canal again.

Bondad said the incident didn't sour the trip and that she and her mom thought it was a "really funny" ordeal.