I lost my nose ring for 5 years — and found it in my lung

It’s not the kind of five-year engagement ring one hopes for.

A piercing addict who lost his nose ring in the night was horrified five years later when he discovered it had been inside his lung that whole time.

“The doctor said I’d won ‘best case of the night,’ ” Joey Lykins, 35, told Kennedy News of his breath-taking ordeal. “I’ve never heard of this happening before.”

Lykins’ respiratory “Lord of the Rings” journey began five years ago, after the Cincinnati native, who boasts a whopping 12 piercings, awoke without his nose ring.

“I woke up and my septum piercing was gone, and I couldn’t find it anywhere,” the distraught groundskeeper described. “I’d had it pierced for three or four years [by that point].”

He added, “I thought maybe I’d swallowed it. I looked everywhere. I flipped the bed over. I did everything.”

After failing to find the missing horseshoe barbell, Lykins finally gave up and replaced the nasal ornament.

The Ohioan then forgot about the lost accessory until several weeks ago, when he woke up at 2:30 am “coughing really hard.”

“I was coughing so hard that my back was starting to hurt,” the poor fellow described. “I felt like something was blocking my airways, and I thought I was sick.”

Initially thinking he had “pneumonia” or another respiratory affliction, Lykins reported to the hospital for an examination.

The results took his breath away: Subsequent X-rays revealed that the ring was inexplicably lodged in the upper lobe of his left lung. “The doctor came in and showed me the X-ray picture and said, ‘Does this look familiar?’ ” the flabbergasted piercing enthusiast exclaimed. “I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me! I’ve been looking for that.’ “

“I didn’t know what was going on, but I never [would] have thought that’s what it was,” he added.

Lykins believes that the ring had fallen out of his nose while he was sleeping and then traveled down his “windpipe” and ended up in his lung.

However, he found his affliction particularly hard to fathom as his accidental lung ring didn’t really cause him any problems until recently. “I’ve coughed, but I never thought too much of it,” explained Lykins, adding that he was just glad it didn’t pierce his lung.

“I don’t know if it could have caused damage, but it was wrapped up in scar tissue, so it didn’t look like it was going anywhere,” he said.

Nonetheless, the patient was referred to a specialist three days later for surgery. He underwent a bronchoscopy — in which doctors passed a thin tube down his throat and into his lungs, so they could retrieve his buried treasure.

“They put me to sleep, put a camera down my windpipe with a little grabber, grabbed it, pulled it out and gave it back to me,” described Lykins, who understandably decided against putting it back in his nose.

“I kept it as a souvenir,” he declared. “I won’t be wearing it again.”