Doctors fish out more than a dozen tiny maggots from man’s eye

Doctors in France reported a rare case of sheep bot fly larvae in a man's eyeball.

The small, spiky larvae were seen slithering around the man's peeper, which explained the redness and itchiness he was experiencing. More than a dozen grub-like creatures were found outside the eyeball and surrounding tissue. Doctors had no choice but to take the bloodsuckers out one by one. If they missed any bugs, the doctors prescribed antibiotics.

There are sheep bot flies in areas with sheep. They usually deliver their offspring to sheep and goats. After falling to the ground and pupating in the environment, the larvae turn into parasites. On rare occasions, adult female flies become bleary-eyed and lay broods in a human eye, causing a disease called ophthalmomyiasis. The flies don't live to adulthood in the human eye, so this is a dead end. You would be wrong to think that the unfortunate outbreak is nothing to be angry about.

Eye-opening

There are hooks in the mouth of the Oestrus ovis larvae. The spikes can cause irritation to the eye's outer layer. This can lead to redness, swelling, and a feeling of a foreign body in the eye.

In rare cases, the larvae can burrow into the eyeball. They can cause more severe damage once inside. Symptoms can include floaters in vision, flashes of light, lines through vision, and eye pain. Even if the maggots die inside the eyeball, they can cause serious inflammation, which can further diminish vision. The outcomes of ophthalmomyiasis, which can be caused by a variety of flies, can range from mild, short-lived discomfort to blindness.

The case in France was published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The only thing that got inside his eyeball was the external ophthalmomyiasis. The 53-year-old man went to the emergency department after he had a problem with his eye. He told doctors that he felt something in his eye while he was gardening near a sheep farm, but he didn't know what it was.

The man had good vision in both eyes, but his right eye was red and irritated. The interlopers were revealed a closer look. The man was given treatment after the maggots were removed. The man's eye was back to normal at a 10-day follow-up.