The amount of disease-carrying ticks in the northeast, and in most other regions of the US, are increasing dramatically, and so is the rate of human tick-borne disease cases. Lyme disease is easily the most common tick-borne disease contracted in the northeast, as some experts state that as many as 44,000 new cases are reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention each year. Due to the tick threat, many residents of the northeastern states have become accustomed to spraying themselves with DEET repellents and wearing long-sleeved clothing before venturing into wooded areas. Unfortunately, sustaining bites from infected ticks is now becoming more common in residential yards, especially yards with overlong grass, but high tick populations have been recorded in well maintained lawns in the northeast as well. Now, even stepping outside may require the application of tick-repellents, and pets are more likely than ever to bring ticks into homes after spending time outdoors. However, in some cases, ticks can bite those who are drenched in DEET repellent products. Obviously, DEET repellent should never be applied to the eyes, and most people are just fine with this, after all, will a tick really bite a person on the eyeball? The answer to this question is “yes,” as a man recently struggled to remove a tick that had become embedded in his eye.
One month ago, an outdoor electrical worker, Chris Prater, reported to work after spraying himself without tick-repellent. By the end of the day, Prater experienced eye-discomfort, which prompted his boss and colleagues to inspect his eye for anything out of the ordinary. The amatuer eye examination turned up a small “object” on Prater’s eye, but nobody present was aware that what they were looking at was a tick. After spending hours attempting to remove the object with saline solution at an emergency eyewash station, Prater finally reported to the doctor where he learned that the object in his eye was actually a deer tick. The doctor numbed Prater’s eye before using tweezers to remove the tick, which apparently made a popping sound just as the bloodsucking arachnid was being pulled off. Prater claimed that he never would have guessed that the object in his eye was a tick, and now he is warning others about falling victim to his experience. Back in 2011, a medical journal described an identical case, which involved the same method of removal.
Has a bug ever crawled or flown into your eye-socket?