A man whose ear had itched for two months turned out to have mites crawling in his ear canal, a new case report says.
The 70-year-old man in Taiwan also reported feeling a sense of fullness in the right ear, but had no hearing impairment, ringing in his ears or discharge.
Upon looking into the man's ear canal, doctors discovered mites and mite eggs, belonging to a species identified as the house-dust mite Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus, according to a report of the man's case published Thursday (Oct. 4) in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Having mites in one's ear, a condition formally called otoacariasis, is pretty rare, said Dr. Ian Storper, director of otology at the New York Head & Neck Institute at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. The video the Taiwan doctors captured of the mites crawling in the man's ear shows the typical swelling of the ear tissue, and debris in the ear canal that is found in such infections, he said.
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