Colonoscopies are a fact of life for people after a certain age.

There are all kinds of reasons why its wise to get a medical professional to take a gander at what is going on inside your digestive tract, from screening for cancer to a variety of other conditions like colitis and inflammatory bowel disease.

But there are other, unexpected things that are sometimes found inside people’s colons, and often, the patient has no idea how they got there.

Read on…if you have a strong stomach.

Insects found during colonoscopies are usually the result of ingestion by the patient, often without them even realizing what it is that they have eaten. Due to the hard exoskeleton of most bugs, they survive the trip through the digestive system relatively unscathed, and are found lodged in the other end

One woman was found with a cockroach in her system, likely due to an infestation in her home. It was thought that the cockroach was likely lurking in the food she had eaten

Because of the preparation for these screenings, patients are usually advised to stick to liquid diets for a period of time before the procedure, in which it seems as if it would be harder for bugs to enter the food.

But, they are also often required to drink large amounts of sweet solutions before the procedure. These liquids can attract certain flying insects if left uncovered, which is how doctors think one person wound up with a yellow jacket inside of them, another a honeybee, and a third a house fly.

One patient was even found with a moth inside their body, though the trip through the digestive tract did strip the animal of its scales.

The bottom line: watch what you put in your mouth.

If you found that story interesting, learn more about why people often wake up around 3 AM and keep doing it for life.