There was an old woman who swallowed a fly....

Tatiana

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15186061-13762,00.html

Maggots chew toward woman's brain From correspondents in Bangkok May 05, 2005 From:

DOCTORS in northern Thailand have removed almost three dozen fly maggots from a woman's nose, where they were eating their way towards her brain, a report said.The 38-year-old pig farmer from the northwestern city of Chiang Mai is believed to be the first reported case in Thailand of maggots nesting in a human's nose, Tawee Thanuparprangsan of Nakhon Ping hospital told The Nation newspaper.

The 38-year-old woman visited the doctor in late March, complaining of excruciating pain in her left cheek.

"I checked her nasal cavity and found a lot of fly maggots there," Tawee told the paper.

The maggots had eaten so much of her nasal tissue that some of her cartilage was exposed, Tawee added.

He anesthetized the woman and during an operation removed 34 maggots from inside her nose.

"She then needed antibiotics to treat the bacterial infection for five straight days before being allowed to return home," Tawee told the paper.

As a pig farmer, the woman was exposed to many flies every day.

"Probably while she was sleeping, a fly went up her nose and laid its eggs, which then hatched into larvae," Tawee said.

If the infected area had spread to her brain, she could have died, Tawee added.

Last week, the paper reported that an 84-year-old man on the southern resort isle of Phuket had 50 maggots removed from his ear, after he went to a hospital complaining of an itch.

He had scratched his ears so hard that they started bleeding, and doctors said that flies apparently had gotten inside and laid eggs.

Last week, the same hospital removed an eight-centimetre-long leech from throat of a 19-year-old man who had complained of a constant sore throat.

Charisma

that is so gross

upside/down

How does a pig farmer in Thailand get life saving brain surgery... when I was couldn't get an operation I needed to fix a broke neck in the good ol US of A?

I thought that maggots (larvae housefly) ONLY ate dead flesh. They use them to clean up sutcher wounds on open heart surgery patients... they eat the dead flesh and leave the living tissue alone...

There's gotta be more to the story...

u/d

Sirona

I HATE FLIES

It is my phobia

This is SO gross!!!!!!

Sirona

SixofNine

Between "there was an old woman who swallowed (a fly)", "as a pig farmer, the woman was exposed", and "Phuket", I feel a limerick coming on!

Tatiana

Flies spread disease to animals. Myiasis is the infection of an animal with fly larvae (maggots). Common in cattle, (picture at right), sheep, and deer, myiasis also occurs in humans, when certain flies are attracted to wounds, where they lay eggs.

The hatched larvae (maggots) then burrow into the skin. Depending on the type of fly, the larvae remain in the skin and cause lesions, or they move through the body and cause damage to various organs. Intestinal myiasis occurs when humans ingest food containing the eggs of larvae.

Screw-worm flies only breed on the wounds of living animals. The female fly lays up to 250 eggs on the edge of a fresh wound. After hatching, the larvae (or maggots) enter the wound and burrow into the underlying tissue to feed. As they grow, they form a huge mass of maggots, and cause extensive tissue damage. Infested animals can't dislodge the larvae by licking or biting, and may eventually be 'eaten alive'.

http://www.geocities.com/thesciencefiles/maggot/info.html