bot fly in humans

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http://loom.corante.com/archives/2006/03/17/gross_and_then_really_gross.php

 

 

 

 

3. dobzhansky on March 20, 2006 09:30 AM writes...

 

During medical school my wife had first hand experience with bot fly.

She had just returned from a month-long community medicine rotation in

Nicaragua when she started complaining about something moving in her

scalp. She kept asking me to take a look and I saw nothing but a

mosquito bite. So I told her she was imagining things and to go back

to bed (what a great husband huh?). Well, she ended up in the

University of Iowa OR having two bot fly larvae surgically removed

from her head. She was the star of the hospital that week (how many

human bot fly cases do you think are seen in Iowa?) as well as with a

parasitologist friend of ours. We even have a couple of grueling

slides of the event!

 

As it turns out, this experience has made her a better doctor - on at

least one occasion she has correctly diagnosed someone with bot fly

while everyone else thought she was nuts.

 

 

 

 

 

4. dbpitt on March 20, 2006 12:17 PM writes...

 

I would have to say, the picture in your book of the botfly in the

kid's brain was what really got me the most. That was just crazy.

 

 

 

 

5. Brenda Johnstone on March 20, 2006 12:21 PM writes...

 

My husband had two botflies removed from his scrotum. I have complete

details of our ordeal about it on our website. Doctors are not aware

of what a botfly is; therefore it took a lot of convincing when we

were at the emergency room to have them removed. They thought we were

nuts (pun intended)!

 

 

 

6. KevinM on March 20, 2006 04:37 PM writes...

 

Worked on a farm one year and got to see blowfly myiasis first hand,

when we sheared the sheep. Yes, it looked disgusting, but the SMELL,

my God, the SMELL.

 

 

 

7. Jeremy Pine on March 20, 2006 10:02 PM writes...

 

I. love. botflies. Thank you again for making science infinitely more

fun than horror movies.

 

 

 

9. Bram on March 28, 2006 04:00 PM writes...

 

Hey botfly lovers. Here is a comprehensive site on the little critter.

http://botfly.quiik.com/

 

With two really neat pictures of a human botfly larva in action.

(Don't watch these if you are eating, I warned you.)

 

pic 01: http://botfly.quiik.com/epe90105f2.jpg

pic 02: http://botfly.quiik.com/epe90105f3.jpg

 

Bram