A boy heard a buzz in his ear. It was a tick on his eardrum

There are sounds you hope to never hear. For example, the buzz of a tick burrowing into your eardrum.

That's what happened to a 9-year-old boy from Connecticut, who was taken to the doctor because he felt he had something in his right ear, according to a report from his case published yesterday (May 1) in The New England Journal of Medicine. The boy had also reported hearing ringing in his ear a few days earlier, but did not have a hard ear or had trouble hearing.

However, the cause of the boy's problems was immediately highlighted when doctors examined the inside of his ear and spotted a tick attached to the eardrum (also called the tympanic membrane). They also noticed that the surrounding area was inflamed.

Dr. David Kasle, resident in Otolaryngology at Yale New Haven Hospital, who helped to treat the patient, said that he had never seen a case of this type before but added that such cases rarely occur.

The buzz that the boy heard a few days before going to the doctor was probably due to the sound of the tick crawling in his ear cbad. "Essentially, the closer a sound gets to the eardrum, the stronger it will be [heard] by the patient, "said Kasle Live Science. As this virus has become closer and closer, [the boy] probably heard more and more loudly. "

However, by the time the doctors spotted the tick, the creature was no longer alive, Kasle said.

Kasle's colleague, Dr. Erik Waldman, Chief of Pediatric Otolaryngology at Yale New Haven Children's Hospital, first tried to remove the tick at visit of the office. But the mouthparts of the tick were buried on the outer surface of the tympanic membrane, making removal difficult. "It did not come out easily," said Kasle.

The boy was to be transferred to an operating room so that doctors could attempt to remove the bloodsucker while he was under general anesthesia. [5 Weird Effects of Bug Bites]

The doctors used a hook-shaped instrument to remove the dead tick. He was later identified as an American dog tick, or Dermacentor variabilissays the report.

After removing the tick, the boy received antibiotic ear drops to prevent the development of an infection. A month later, the boy was fine, showed no sign of tick-bite illness, and his eardrum had healed well, the report said.

Originally published on Science live.