Man has fly larvae removed from eye after gardening encounter
A man who went to hospital with a badly itching eye received a nasty surprise when he was told he had fly larvae squirming on it.
The 53-year-old man from France went to the emergency room after his eye had been itching for hours, according to a report published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Doctors carried out an eye exam and found "more than a dozen" fly larvae on the man's cornea and conjunctiva.
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A man was found to have fly larvae in his eye after gardening. Atlas of Living Australia
The man told doctors he had been gardening earlier in the day and felt something fly into his eye.
Doctors removed the creepy-crawlies with a pair of forceps. They were identified as being the larvae of a sheep bot fly.
In a follow-up appointment 10 days later the man was healthy and well.
Sheep bot flies, as can be guessed by the name, typically strike sheep. A mother fly will deposit her larvae in the nose of a sheep, where they will crawl into a nasal passage to mature.
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