WARNING: Graphic content
A doctor has pulled maggots from a woman’s infested ear and filmed it for the viewing enjoyment of literally no one.
This disturbing footage shows some 30 live maggots being removed from an elderly patient’s ear canal after they hatched inside the orifice.
Watch at your own peril:
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The footage, taken by nurses at the Third Xiangya Hospital, part of Central South University, shows doctor Ma Yanhong having to remove the wriggling bugs one by one using a pair of tweezers.
The ear, nose and throat specialist based in Changsha, capital of central China’s Hunan Province, was given the case after the 76-year-old villager was transferred from a smaller facility.
According to the patient’s granddaughter, the elderly woman has been suffering from chronic suppurative otitis – an inflammatory disease of the middle ear – for six decades.
She was first plagued by the illness 60 years ago, causing a pus-like discharge to be present in her left ear.
However, because the condition did not appear to affect her daily life – and because the family could not afford a trip to the hospital – she left it untreated for decades.
About a week ago, a fly entered her left ear and she injured herself while trying to dig the insect out.
Four days later, however, the unnamed woman said her left ear began to hurt – and then she noticed maggots falling out of it.
A local clinic confirmed her fears – there was an infestation of live fly larvae inside her head – and she was transferred to the provincial capital for treatment.
Doctor Ma said:
The fly was most likely attracted to the putrid discharge in her ear canal and then it laid eggs, which hatched into maggots.
Doctor Ma said more than 30 maggots were retrieved from the woman’s ear and she has been scheduled for further surgery to treat her condition.
God help her.
This comes just days after a video went viral, showing a dentist peeling back the lips of a patient – who is believed to be a woman from India – revealing a mass of writhing maggots making a home in the badly eroded gum tissue.
Such a gory infestation would usually be seen in pieces of rotting meat, however, this was a living, breathing, human being.
The decayed, yellowing teeth and eroded gums, strongly suggest a serious dental hygiene issue.
An official diagnosis has not been given, however it’s believed the patient is suffering from oral myiasis – quite literally: fly disease.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Myiasis is infection with a fly larva, usually occurring in tropical and subtropical areas.
According to a study in the Journal for Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, oral myiasis is a more unusual type of myiasis, ‘a rare disease primarily caused by infestation of tissue by larvae of houseflies.’
Oral myiasis is still more ‘rare’ and ‘unique’ owing to the fact that oral cavity rarely provides the necessary habitat conducive for a larval lifecycle.
Stop the world. I want to get off.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.