Gruesome footage shows a doctor pulling two leeches out of a man's nose after 'he washed his face with dirty water'

Gruesome footage captures the moment a doctor removed two wriggling leeches from a man's nose.

The man, known only by his surname Cao, sought help from an ear, nose and throat specialist after enduring ten days of near-constant nosebleeds.

Cao, who works as a citrus farmer in southern China, confessed to a habit of washing his face in water that has not been sterilised.

Little did he know two blood-sucking leeches were inside his nostrils. It is unclear how they may have caused his nose bleeds.

Cao went to see Dr Zhou Fucui, who is the lead ENT specialist at Guangji Hospital in the Guangdong province.

'Uncooked water often contains leech eggs which are not visible to the naked eye,' Dr Fucui said.

She inspected the inside of Cao's nose with an endoscope, where she discovered the two parasites.

The worm-like creature were able to hide themselves in Cao's narrow nostrils, which made them tricky to remove them.

Dr Fucui eventually managed to grab the leeches, which were 5cm long, with forceps.

'Leeches are very hardy, so it's easy for them to survive in the human body,' she said.

In February, doctors in the south-western Sichuan Province found a 10cm leech had lived in a 60-year-old man's throat for two months after he drank contaminated water.

A leech is a type of segmented worm that has suckers at both ends of its body, one of which contains the mouth and is used to suck blood for the creature to feed on.

Leeches can range in size from minuscule to 20cm (eight inches) or even longer when stretched out, and are found all over the world.

They feed on blood by making small cuts in their prey's skin then covering it in their saliva, which numbs the area and increases blood flow.