With 150 live bugs out of his nostril, a Florida guy can breathe easier today. The anonymous patient went to a hospital earlier this month after discovering that his entire face felt like it was on fire.
Despite the fact that the individual initially had symptoms in October, they didn’t become significant until recently.
“Over a couple hours my face just started swelling, my lips swelled, I could hardly talk,” the patient told. “I couldn’t even get up to go to the bathroom without my nose starting to bleed.”
The man went to see the on-call ear, nose, and throat specialist, Dr. David Carlson, at HCA Florida Memorial Hospital in Jacksonville.
When Carlson used a camera to peer inside the man’s nose, he was astounded. He observed a plethora of insects, some as large as the tip of his pinkie, eating on the sinus cavity and nose.
“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,” Carlson stated.
Initially, the doctor attempted to use suction to eliminate the larvae from the man’s nose. However, they proved too large, requiring him to extract them individually.
“They were right up against his skull base, right under the brain, had they gone through that it could have killed him,” Carlson stated.
Since then, an epidemiologist has received the bugs to identify their species. It is anticipated that the patient will fully recover.
The man claimed that his poor hygiene practices when handling dead fish may have been the cause of the issue, albeit it is still unclear how the larvae entered his nostril.
