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 on Tuesday.
The 38-year-old pig farmer from the north-western 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 anaesthetised 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 8cm-long leech from throat of a 19-year-old man who had complained of a constant sore throat. — AFP