A young girl’s complaints of ear pain recently lead to a scary discovery of ticks in her ear.
The child’s mother, Aqila Nasir, posted the experience as a cautionary tale on Facebook – reminding parents to never take their child’s pain lightly.
Replying to several comments, Aqila said her daughter mostly wears a hijab when playing outside, expressing her confusion as well as fear of the discovery.
On January 17 at around 6pm, Aqila’s daughter, Hayfa, informed her of her ear pain and Aqila checked the inside of her ear with a flashlight but did not spot anything unusual at the time, leading her to believe it was probably a pimple in her ear.
The entrepreneur then told Hayfa that she will take her to the clinic the following day if there are any signs of pain but after a while, Hayfa did not indicate any signs of pain thus Aqila “forgot about it”.
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The next day, on January 18, Hayfa woke up from sleep saying her neck hurts, prompting Aqila to assume she slept wrong and told her to try “stretching” the neck a little.
“The reason why her neck hurt was probably because of her ear pain. I resumed cooking and was occupied and did not think much about it because she did not complain about ear pain,” she said.
Later when Aqila and her family were ready to go out, Hayfa’s ear pain kicks in once more and the mother of two says she will check it later as she was getting ready as well however, her father believed something was amiss, as Hayfa’s pain tolerance is relatively high.
However, the matter was not pursued as Hayfa, according to Aqila, did not say anything after that and once they reached their outing destination which was a kids’ recreational centre, Hayfa did not go and play, which worried Aqila.
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“If she is passive, there is no other reasons unless she is really in pain so I shone a flashlight into her ear and saw dark spots near the ear canal. I thought it was dried blood or a wound.
“I asked Hayfa is she was digging her ears and she said no. I wondered what it was until it crossed my mind that it could be ticks. I immediately searched ticks in ear on Google which showed images similar to the black spots in Hayfa’s ear, confirming that there were ticks in her ear,” Aqila recounted.
She and her family immediately left and searched for a nearby clinic and managed to find one but was not proven helpful after she was allegedly charged RM50 for the medicine and medicinal drops, also claiming the doctor did not bother properly checking her daughter’s ear.
After that, she contacted a clinic in Jasin to inquire of their ear cleaning services and headed there instead.
Aqila also mentioned that the doctor asked if Hayfa often plays with cats but she said she does not own any cats however in her housing area, there are cats who roam about, according to her reply in the comments section.
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“The camera showed me that her ear was full (of ticks). The doctor said the ticks seemed to have resided in the ear for quite a while.
“The thing is, Hayfa complained of ear pain only yesterday. Maybe she had not felt it because of her high pain tolerance.
“The doctor said earlier that pulling out the ticks from the ear is going to be quite painful because ticks grab on to the skin so the skin will tear a bit,” Aqila added.
The doctor thoroughly cleaned Hayfa’s ear to prevent an infection and advised to give her some aspirin to relieve the pain.
Aqila concluded her post warning parents to never take their child’s complaints of pain as it could indicate serious issues with their health.
