Tick-Induced Facial Palsy

Turkiye Parazitol Derg. 2015 Sep;39(3):248-51. doi: 10.5152/tpd.2015.3683.

Abstract

Ticks are obligate blood-sucking arthropods that exist worldwide. Their targets include all vertebrates and humans. Ticks are harmful to people with regard to transmission in many viral, bacterial, and parasitic infections. In addition to these diseases and toxin-induced neurological complications, tick-induced paralysis is a syndrome related to neurotoxin production, and its mortality ratio in the literature is reported to be approximately 10%. Tick-induced isolated facial paralysis is a rare form of the disease developing because of attachment to the external auditory canal or attachment behind the ear. Our country and region are under risk in terms of included tick habitat for tick-induced paralysis that is responsible particularly for hard ticks. In our article, we aimed to present a case with isolated facial paralysis that occurred after the internal auditory canal was bitten by Hyalomma margintum species belonging to the hard ticks group and to probe the management of this disease.

Publication types

  • Case Reports

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Ear Canal / parasitology*
  • Ecosystem
  • Facial Paralysis / parasitology*
  • Humans
  • Ixodidae / classification*
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Scalp / parasitology
  • Tick Paralysis / parasitology*