A TikToker thinks she may have a plant particle 'embedded' in her cheek. While a doctor said there's nothing there, viewers are once again convinced they know better.

• While eating a salad with edible flowers, an influencer felt something puncture and disappear into her cheek.
• Millions of strangers have tuned in to watch Alexa Hendricks seek medical treatment.
• Hendricks told Insider she's baffled by all the attention as she's still trying to find answers.

Alexa Hendricks was out to lunch with her sister on a trip to New York City last Friday, finishing up a salad with edible flowers on top, when all of a sudden she "felt a prick inside my cheek," the 22-year-old influencer said in a TikTok that's been viewed 1.3 million times.

Hendricks, a lifestyle creator based in Kentucky, who has 211,000 TikTok followers, initially assumed a sharp flower stem had punctured her cheek. She tried to dislodge it with her tongue and finger, "but it started getting shorter and shorter," she said, "and it was literally getting pushed back into my cheek."

So began a widely-watched and still-ongoing medical saga as Hendricks sought answers from several doctors about what, if anything, remains "embedded" in her mouth. 

While a doctor told her they don't believe anything is in her cheek, she's still experiencing pain. Some of her most devoted followers are arguably more concerned than she is, convincing themselves that something, perhaps a plant particle, is still lodged in there. Hendrick's saga is a part of a curiously growing trend of corporal medical mysteries on TikTok — ones that viewers are convinced that they can solve. 

Her first doctor visit came back inconclusive but grabbed the attention of 2.5 million people

When she returned home from New York on Sunday, the pain in her cheek was making it difficult for Hendricks to eat and sleep. Her first trip was to the dentist, which she chronicled on TikTok, leaving the doctor a little bewildered: "I don't know what to suggest," the dentist can be heard saying in the video. 

Hendricks had an appointment the next morning with an oral surgeon. She was also working with a new theory inspired by her mom, a registered nurse: that the object in question was a "little cactus stick."

"My mom said she'd gotten pricked by a cactus before and what happened was the cactus went in and then kind of dissolved into her skin," Hendricks told Insider. "That was her thought ... but I never ate a cactus or anything."

At the oral surgeon, Hendricks received more unsatisfying updates. The doctor didn't believe that anything was stuck in her cheek, but that the stab had traumatized the tissue, which can flare up days after the incident, she said. Hendricks was given a prescription of mouthwash and ibuprofen, and has a follow-up appointment in a week if things don't improve.

"Obviously, the doctor was like, we don't wanna just cut you open," she told Insider. But viewers didn't necessarily agree.

"There is still something in there!! Guaranteed," one person wrote, and Hendricks responded in agreement.

"Wait, they aren't removing it?" another concerned viewer added.

Some, because of another alarming viral incident earlier this month, are theorizing it could be a piece of a grill brush. Hendricks said she had not been to a barbecue recently or come in contact with a grill brush, shutting those frantic concerns down. 

Hendricks is still seeking answers as these medical mystery videos grow a life of its own

On Tuesday morning, Hendricks said she was feeling better. "It's definitely not as swollen as it has been the past two days," she said.

But she's still unsure on whether the object, be it a flower stem, cactus spike, or walnut particle (another floating theory from her dentist), remains. "I know what I felt," she said of the initial puncture. "But maybe somehow it's been ejected or dissolved."

She's also starting to come down with cold symptoms. "I don't know if that's like the weather change from being in Kentucky or allergies, but my mom was like, 'Well, what if it's an infection?'"

While she's happy to receive so much support from strangers online who are concerned about her health, the attention has also been overpowering.

"I wasn't even gonna share it at first, and now I have millions of people invested in this little cheek thing," she said. "That was not the plan, but I'm not mad about it."

Hendricks' journey is now a part of a growing fascination on the app with unsolved medical ailments — specifically about lodged foreign objects. Earlier this month, a woman on TikTok also went viral after sharing that she believes she has a needle stuck in her foot. While doctor visits also came up inconclusive, she and her followers are convinced that it may still be living in her body, potentially traveling up her leg. As aforementioned, a Florida pediatric ER physician also recently went viral for sharing an alarming account of a child who discovered he had a piece of a metal barbecue brush stuck in his right tonsil area.