LA GRANDE, Ore. — Parents in Oregon recorded the terrifying moments after their daughter was left partially paralyzed from being bitten by a tick.
On May 13th, Amanda Lewis’ daughter Evelyn became fussy after her bath and didn’t want to stand up. The next morning, Evelyn was still having problems standing and could barely walk, crawl, or use her arms.
Afraid, Lewis and her husband decided to film a video and send it to their family to see if they had any idea of what could be wrong with their daughter.
After the symptoms worsened, Evelyn was rushed to the emergency room. A few minutes later, a doctor found a tick hiding in Evelyn’s hair. Lewis described the terrifying moments in a Facebook post.
“The doctor talked to us for a minute and said over the past 15 years he had seen about 7 or 8 children her age with identical symptoms and more than likely she had a tick,” she wrote. “They looked her over, combed through her hair really well and sure enough found a tick hiding in her hair. This condition is called tick paralysis. It can affect dogs also and can be fatal. I’m glad we took her in when we did and that it wasn’t something worse and that we found it before it got worse.”
Tick paralysis is a disease that attacks the use of a person’s muscles, according to the American Lyme Disease Foundation.
Symptoms like numbness of the legs and muscle pains begin after a tick has attached itself to a host, typically on their scalp. Once the tick is removed, symptoms typically improve.
Lewis posted an update on Evelyn’s condition, saying she is doing much better.
“Evelyn is doing much better. It took her until the next morning to start acting like herself again,” the post said. “She is now pretty much completely back to her feisty little self. She complains a lot about her head itching but otherwise, she’s just fine.”
The video has more than 16 million views, 523,000 shares and 54,000 likes.