JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (WFLA) — A Florida man had a horrific experience after doctors extracted 150 live larvae from his nose over a week ago.
According to NBC affiliate WTLV, a patient showed up at HCA Florida Memorial Hospital after experiencing severe pain and nose bleeds.
“Over a couple hours my face just started swelling, my lips swelled, I could hardly talk,” the patient told WTLV. “My whole face felt like it was on fire.”
When the on-call ENT, Dr. David Carlson, examined the patient’s nose, he noticed something moving in the patient’s nasal cavity.
After getting a camera to look inside, the doctor found dozens of living pests just living in the man’s sinuses, feeding off of him.
“Size wise there’s variations, but the larger ones were as big as the end of my pinky,” said Dr. Carlson. “I knew he was in big trouble, there was erosion that was occurring near the skull base in very close proximity to his eye and his brain.”
It had gotten so bad that the larvae had burrowed into other tissues inside his head. In total, 150 of these creatures were pulled from the patient’s head with different methods, according to Carlson.
“They were right up against his skull base, right under the brain,” he said. “Had they gone through that it could have killed him.”
The patient said he had a compromised immune system after getting a tumor removed 30 years ago, which could have contributed to the infestation. Typically, your immune system keeps intruders from making your body their home.
Carlson said the condition, nasal myiasis, is so rare that he had not seen anything like it documented in the United States. The doctor said the removal of the tumor all those years ago could have caused voids where the parasites could thrive.
The patient, an avid fisher, said he may have gotten it from handling dead fish.
According to WTLV, the patient will recover completely after being given an anti-parasitic.