Live wriggling tick is tugged out of a patient’s ear

Gruesome video captures a wriggling tick ripping off a piece of skin as it tries to cling on when doctors try to remove the blood-sucking bug

• The tick has been feeding on the patient’s blood and is swollen and grey
• It clings onto the skin as an ear, nose and throat surgeon grabs it with tweezers
• The biting insect is eventually removed but takes a small piece of skin with it 
• The patient was reportedly in ‘a lot of discomfort’, the surgeon said
• Ticks can cause Lyme disease, which can take months or years to recover from 

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A gruesome video has captured the moment a person had a live, squirming tick removed from deep inside their ear.

The anonymous patient was in ‘a lot of discomfort’, their doctor said, before he investigated and found the blood-sucking bug nestled in their ear canal.

In the footage, the swollen tick takes force to remove because its head is stuck in the patient’s skin, and its legs wave wildly as it is plucked from its hiding place.

A pair of tweezers are used to clamp the insect and tug it out, and it pulls off a small piece of skin where it had been feeding from.

In the video, a grey tick is removed from the ear canal of an unnamed patient as a surgeon uses tweezers to grab and pluck the blood-sucking insect out of their skin

Dr Rahmat Omar, an ear, nose and throat surgeon from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital city, filmed his grotesque encounter with the patient. 

Ticks are small arachnids – similar to spiders – and feed off the blood of mammals.

To drink blood they bury their head under the skin of the animal while they are feeding and cling on, which makes them difficult to remove.  

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In his video, Dr Omar first appears to use a vacuum tool to try and suck the tick out of the patient’s ear, but it is stuck and can’t be prised out of the skin.

As the insect – which is grey and enlarged, suggesting it is full with the patient’s blood – is poked and prodded with the implement it waves its legs in the air, scrambling to hold on.

Dr Omar opts for a pair of tweezers to do the job, clamps them onto the bug and pulls it off, and the tick appears to pull off a piece of skin in the process.

The 49-year-old said: ‘The patient was in a lot of discomfort, they were so happy when I removed it.

‘It’s certainly the first time I have ever seen this and I hope I never have to do this again. It could have been very dangerous.’

The tick is attached to the skin inside the ear canal and appears swollen and grey, which shows it is full of blood which has been sucked from the patient’s skin

Dr Omar first tries to use suction from a vacuum tool to pull the tick out of the ear but its head is too firmly attached to the skin and it manages to cling on – ticks bury their heads in the animals they are sucking blood from, so they cannot be easily brushed off

Dr Omar then decides to use tweezers to grab the tick, which flails its legs as it is tugged, and the patient’s skin is pulled as the insect tries to hang on 

Eventually the surgeon successfully pulls the tick off, but the biting insect manages to pull a small piece of skin off as it is removed

The still-living tick is taken out of the patient’s body and set down in the surgeon’s office, where it flails its legs and scrambles around

Dr Omar then proceeds to pluck out a huge lump of ear wax from the patient’s ear before the video ends

Ticks are usually harmless – their bites tend to be painless and they feed for around a week before dropping off.

But the insects can spread Lyme disease, a bacterial infection which can cause symptoms like tiredness and weakness which last for years.

Sheep ticks are the ones most likely to bite humans, and cannot jump or fly, but grab onto the skin with hooked front legs when someone brushes against a plant they’re on. 

Tick bites can become infected if the insect is not removed properly and its head is ripped off and remains under the skin after it has died.

To properly remove a tick you should use tweezers and grasp it as close to the skin as possible, then pull slowly to avoid crushing it. 

Make sure the entire of the insect’s body has been removed, then wash the area with soap or antiseptic.

WHAT IS LYME DISEASE?

Lyme disease is caused by a bacteria that is transmitted to humans through the bite of infected black-legged ticks.

The most common symptoms of the disease are fever, headache, fatigue and a skin rash called erythema migrans.

The disease can typically be treated by several weeks of oral antibiotics.

But if left untreated, the infection can spread to the joints, heart and nervous symptoms and be deadly.  

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ARE INFECTED?

During the first three to 30 days of infection, these symptoms may occur:

• Fever
• Chills
• Headache
• Fatigue
• Muscle and joint aches
• Swollen lymph nodes
• Erythema migrans (EM) rash 

The rash occurs in approximately 80 per cent of infected people.

It can expand to up to 12 inches (30 cm), eventually clearing and giving off the appearance of a target or a ‘bull’s-eye’.

Later symptoms of Lyme disease include:

• Severe headaches and neck stiffness
• Additional rashes
• Arthritis with joint pain and swelling
• Facial or Bell’s palsy
• Heart palpitations
• Problems with short-term memory
• Nerve pain 

Source: CDC

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