Candela Reybaud, a 35-year-old Argentinian nutritionist and influencer with 105,000 Instagram followers, shared a stunning medical discovery in late November 2025 that explained her chronic breathing difficulties since birth. A scan performed after a recurring sinus infection revealed a foreign object lodged in her right nasal septum, which was removed endoscopically after 35 years of silent obstruction.
Respiratory problems that have been trivialized since childhood
Since her birth in 1990, Candela had breathed primarily through her mouth, with air barely passing through her right nostril when she inhaled, which made sports, sleep, and daily activities difficult. Accustomed to this discomfort, she had never consulted an ENT specialist, considering it a "personal normal" despite its impact on her quality of life. A sinus infection in 2024, initially treated without a CT scan due to the lack of local access, saw her symptoms—pain in her right cheek and increased obstruction—return more severely, finally prompting her to seek a thorough examination.
The unlikely discovery during the scan
Imaging revealed a small foreign body, just a few millimeters in size, embedded in the nasal septum, forming a rhinolith after decades. The doctor removed it via endoscope in nearly two hours: a piece of folded and rolled adhesive tape, calcified by time. "At first, we didn't understand what it was," Candela recounts, before the unexpected object that had been blocking her airflow for so long was clearly identified.
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The probable origin linked to birth
Her mother recalls an episode of respiratory distress in the neonatal unit, where a nasal tube had been inserted for ventilation: the adhesive tape used to secure the equipment could have come loose and remained stuck during removal. "It's the only logical explanation we've found," explains the mother, emphasizing the improbability, but also the coherence of this hypothesis given the absence of other obvious causes.
A breath of fresh air and a message of awareness
After the extraction, Candela breathes "better every day," discovering at 35 the sensation of clear nostrils, with an immediate improvement in her daily life. Her Instagram video went viral, encouraging people not to downplay chronic symptoms: "If my experience helps someone seek medical help in time, it will have been worth it." This extremely rare case highlights the importance of getting checked out when faced with persistent, even habitual, discomfort.
Candela Reybaud's unique story illustrates how the body can silently adapt to unsuspected anomalies, sometimes for an entire lifetime. Her "baffling" journey serves as a reminder that persistent symptoms should never be ignored, even when they seem to be part of our "normality." By sharing her experience, she helps to break the trivialization of certain disorders and encourages everyone to listen to their body's signals.
