Health

A Man Had Larvae on His Head

From a Belize trip

By Stefan Anitei, Science Editor

23rd of July 2007, 17:51 GMT

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In the western world, people are used mostly with parasites located in their guts. That's why when doctors looked at the weird, bleeding bumps on Aaron Dallas' head, they believed it could have been from gnat bites or shingles. But when the bumps started moving, it appeared that there were five active bot fly larvae living beneath the skin atop Dallas' head.

"I'd put my hand back there and feel them moving. I thought it was blood coursing through my head. I could hear them. I actually thought I was going crazy." Dallas told the (Glenwood Springs) Post Independent.

Dallas explained that he could have taken the larval infestation during a trip to Belize this summer. In tropical Central and South America, these flies are fairly common, attacking from rats to cattle and horses.

Adult bot flies are hairy and look like bees, deposing their eggs on host animals. The larvae, living in a 2-3 mm wide pit, were removed on Thursday. "It was weird and traumatic. I would get this pain that would drop me to my knees." said Dallas, of Carbondale.

When a specialist found him a diagnosis of shingles, Dallas tried various creams and salves, but the pain just got worse. "When I saw him again, it was pretty obvious something else was going on. There's an open pit. You see a little activity, not necessarily the larvae, but a fluctuation of the fluid in the pit." said Dr. Kimball Spence. "I told him, 'I will love you through your maggots,"' Dallas' wife, Midge Dallas, teasing him.

"It's much funnier to everyone else. It makes my stomach turn over. It was cruel." said Dallas, who can see no fun in his story.

If this is gross, what about this 2005 case of a man who got infected and died. He was never treated and was left to fester, so long that the tissue on his scalp turned necrotic and attracted flies. The larvae ate the tissue to his brain. It is reported that the man was actually brought alive to the hospital!

TAGS:

head | brain | larvae | fly

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