Common bad habit triggers man's painful swollen face: 'How?!'

While most of us take the time to remove pips from an orange before eating, some just wolf the fruit down without a care in the world.

But they may rethink such a habit after a man's terrifying ordeal that lasted over a year.

The 52-year-old, from Xi'an, in central China, was suffering from swelling and sever pain at the side of his face and jaw and eventually sought medical help for his symptoms.

A doctor diagnosed the man with having parotid duct stones, which block salivary glands into the mouth.

MRI images shared with Chinese news outlet The Paper show an obstruction in the glands which was causing the man's discomfort.

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However following an operation to remove what was believed to be parotid duct stones, doctors removed a 1cm-long orange pip.

Parotid duct obstruction from foreign bodies is a rare occurrence, US not-for-profit medical care provider Cedars Senai says, but it is more common in men.

The man's plight was shared to Chinese social media site Weibo where many were in disbelief over how the seed managed to become lodged in the gland.

"How did it get in?!" one person asked.

One user joked he was lucky the pip didn't sprout, while others were shocked at the size of the seed.

Obscure finds in strange places in the body are nothing new, with a Brazilian man shocking doctors after he sought help for a 2kg dumbbell inside his rectum earlier this year.

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