Woman’s ‘severe’ hearing loss caused by tick stuck in her ear

A woman’s tick problem turned out to be much stranger – and more serious – than usual. In a case report released this month, the woman’s doctors describe how a tick stuck in her ear led to severe deafness.

Doctors at the BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences in Dharan, Nepal, have detailed the story of an arachnid body horror, involving a 21-year-old woman. In addition to developing hearing loss in her tick-infested right ear, the woman experienced sudden ear pain, dizziness and vomiting. Fortunately, once the tick was removed from its hiding place, it made a full recovery.

Ticks are a growing parasitic nuisance in many parts of the world, including the United States. But typically, their danger comes from the variety of diseases that they can transmit to us through their blood-feeding (that said, only female ticks feed on blood). Much less common, but not rare, is a tick that causes problems by getting stuck in our ears.

According to the report, the woman sought medical attention a week after she began experiencing piercing and worsening pain in her right ear. Two days before seeing doctors, she developed dizziness, tinnitus and increasing deafness in the same ear. Medical tests revealed that she suffered from “severe to profound” hearing loss in her right ear and it didn’t take long to find the culprit: inflammation of the inner ear caused by a dead tick but housed.

While having a tiny living thing stuck in your ear can be dangerous enough, the fact that it was a tick certainly didn’t help matters for the woman. Doctors believe his inflammation was directly triggered by the tick biting the ear (possibly the eardrum) and releasing some sort of toxin from its saliva that seeped into his middle ear. The bite may have only caused a small tear in the eardrum, which was likely already healed by the time doctors examined the woman, as they found it intact during examination.

Fortunately, using suction and forceps, doctors “gently dislodged and removed” the eight-legged ear passenger without issue. The woman was given steroids, mild painkillers and antibiotics to manage her symptoms and prevent infection. And at a follow-up visit a month later, her ear pain and hearing loss were gone.

“The successful management of the patient’s condition, evidenced by complete resolution of symptoms and restoration of hearing, highlights the effectiveness of careful tick removal,” the doctors wrote in their report published this month in the Journal of Medical Case Reports.

Insects and arachnids (ticks and spiders) that end up in our ears are unfortunately an occasional phenomenon. But despite what you may have heard in urban legends that have become widespread on playgrounds, these creepy crawlies aren’t looking to lay eggs inside or eat our brains – there are no no species that deliberately tries to call our ears home. That said, I’ll definitely be even more paranoid about my next trip through tick country.