the ear weevil

[AmandaLynn]

Last night, I let my kids sleep outside in the backyard. It's been really warm here so I didn't bother with setting up the tent or anything. We just pulled out our sleeping bags and slept under the stars. It was all very nice and peaceful until this morning when my six year old woke up crying, " There's a bug in my ear! I can hear it moving, and it hurts so bad! ", I brought her into the house and looked in her ear with a flashlight, but couldn't see anything, so I blew gently into her ear and suddenly saw little antennae! Then a friggin weevil crawled out of my baby's ear!!!!! It was seriously one of the freakiest things I have ever seen. My poor little girl will probably want to sleep with ear plugs in her ears from now on.

 

[Giosan]

Wow that is soooo grose :S Poor little kid....

 

[revmdn]

After reading that I think I might.

 

[ismart]

That is just wack! The thought makes me cringe

 

[AmandaLynn]

Yep, it was reeeaaally creepy. But she's fine now. As soon as it crawled out she calmed down and said it stopped hurting. I don't think the weevil really meant any harm. It probably just crawled in and realized it wasn't a place it wanted to be, and crawled back out. But still... it was horrible.

 

[superfreak]

oh my. i see nightmares on the horizon!

 

[PhilinYuma]

oh my. i see nightmares on the horizon!

You're right, and I never have understood people's horror at the idea of something sneaking into their ear. The earwig is the best example in England, and when it was discovered that the eustachian tube connected the ear with the pharynx, everyone loved being terrified by the thought of being poisoned through the ear, like Hamlet's Dad. Even Blake has an ethcing of the angel of death (Angel of Death?) killing some poor soul in the same way. And wasn't Chekov (sic?) subdued by some disgusting critter in his ear in "The Wrath of Khan" or some such?

As we used to say in the old neighborhood, "From God's mouth to your ear."

Oh, BTW, I used to work nights in ER, years ago, and we would get a "foreign body in the ear" every now and then. It was seldom an insect, usually a bead or the like that some kid had stucjk in his ear, but the parents were generally terrified that it was something that was going to eat its way into the kids brain. The easiaest way to get something like that out is to let the patient lie with his affected ear uppermost (of course!) and flood the ear canal with warm oil, and then either let it drain out or suck it out with a rubber tipped syringe. No extra charge for this information.

 

[revmdn]

I was just thinking about that Star Trek movie.

 

[hibiscusmile]

Is it possible Phil for it to lay eggs? :huh: I am gonna lay down and die now, thanks for the post <_<

 

[kamakiri]

I was just thinking about that Star Trek movie.

Yeah first thing I thought of too...

 

[hibiscusmile]

Phil, whre r u when we need u? come back!

 

[Ian]

Oh wow, that's truely horrific!

I know what I'm going to be thinking everytime I wake up.

 

[ismart]

Maybe this why for sometimes me brain feels hurty! :angry: :lol:

 

[hibiscusmile]

shhhhhh, Phils sleeping

 

[PhilinYuma]

shhhhhh, Phils sleeping

Whaaa? Oh, sorry, Hibiscusmile, just a nap. The answer to your question is "no and yes." If the critter is a male, it probably won't lay any eggs, and even if it is a female, it will only lay a few hundred. Like mantids, many of the young don't survive, so only a dozen or two will actually gnaw their way, slowly, into your brain.

I hope this relieves your anxiety.

 

[hibiscusmile]

:wacko: Dear God, Phil, go back to sleep!

 

[sbugir]

Ouch i heard about roaches going into the ear, i guess it is true that bugs are everywhere. I wonder if its true that the average person eats 6 spiders a year in their sleep...Makes me creeped out!

 

[PhilinYuma]

Ouch i heard about roaches going into the ear, i guess it is true that bugs are everywhere. I wonder if its true that the average person eats 6 spiders a year in their sleep...Makes me creeped out!

The estimate of 6 spiders per person per year is probably correct. I don't know how things are in Colorado, but here in Arizona, we regularly swallow one black widow, two desert recluse (closely related to the brown recluse, only meaner), two wolf and one tarantula a year at two monthly intervals. Yum!

 

[Opivy]

Phil, I've heard about this too. Are you serious? How do you swollow spiders, is it in your sleep? I for one sleep with my mouth closed as much as possible (as long as I'm not sick)