In a medical first, doctors find 'impossible' larvae living inside a woman's nose

What started as pain in the centre of the face turned into bouts of coughing for one woman, who was, within days, sneezing worms out of her nose. The strange medical case has been detailed by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The 58-year-old woman developed a severe cough after weeks of pain in the centre of her face. Soon, when she sneezed, worms came out of her nose. She sought immediate medical attention, after which an expert removed 10 larvae and one pupa from her maxillary sinuses, the large sinuses located on the sides of the nose. Upon studying two of the larvae and part of a puparium, the researchers learned that the wormlike creatures were the larvae of the sheep bot fly (Oestrus ovis). One larva was pale yellow and about 0.6 inches long, while the other was light brown and 0.8 inches long. The puparium was black and wrinkled.

Also Read: Brain dead woman comes back to life in India after ambulance hits huge pothole on UP highway

What were the maggots in the woman's nose?

The Oestrus ovis is found in the nasal passages and sinuses of sheep and goats. Upon investigation, it was found that the woman’s work area was close to a field where sheep grazed. The woman was diagnosed with "O. ovis nasal myiasis with pupation." The report said that after the larvae and pupa were removed from her nose, she was given nasal decongestants and is fine now. What makes the woman’s case unique is the fact that while human cases of O. ovis myiasis have been reported in the past, they have largely affected the eyes, and not the nasal passages. "O. ovis bot flies infrequently affect humans, most often depositing larvae in the conjunctival sac," the study authors wrote. Only rarely have the flies been reported to place larvae into people's nostrils, mouths or ear canals, they added.

Also Read: Woman loses part of lung to '99.99%' certain cancer diagnosis, later learns it was pneumonia

A medical first case of Oestrus ovis in humans

Doctors have always believed that O. ovis cannot have a long life cycle in humans, and they usually make it only to the first larval stage. But recently, older larvae have been identified, the report authors wrote. Pupation, which was the found in the case of the Greek woman, is the point at which larvae mature into "teenagers.” In sheep and goats, a female fly drops tiny larvae, or maggots, near a sheep or goat's nostrils. The maggots crawl deep into the animal's nasal passages and sinuses to feed and grow for several months. After developing further, they crawl back out of the nose and drop to the dirt. They burrow into the ground to form a hard shell (pupa), eventually emerging as adult flies. The maggots can sometimes get trapped inside the host's head. When this happens, they almost always die because a living animal's sinuses aren't the right environment for them to turn into flies.