In what can truly be labeled as ‘believe it or not, a French gardener’s itching eye turned out to be dozens of fly larvae his cornea. The incident was brought to light in a paper called New England Journal of Medicine.
The unidentified 53-year-old man reportedly rushed to a hospital emergency room with complaints of itching in his right eye, the paper reported. The man told the doctors that he had been gardening near a farm housing horse and sheep when he felt something enter his eye and since started feeling the itch.
On his complaint, the doctors put him under some tests and soon the “curious case of itchy eye” was busted. The doctors discovered several “mobile, translucent larvae” right on his cornea. These barely-visible-under-naked-eye culprits were identified by the authors of the paper as Oestrusovis, the sheep bot fly”.
The authors in the paper also remarked that the condition has no cure per say and the one and only solution left for the doctors was to manually remove the small organisms from the eyeball. The doctors eventually managed to pluck each of these organisms out one by one, and fortunately, the man was reported completely recovered.
The Facts of the Matter
As more and more people turn themselves to computers for livelihoods, screen-related issues in eyes, including itching, redness and watery-eyes, are more and more apparent. Itching among them is one of the most common feeling humans often get annoyed due to. As is the case with most itches, it stops persisting after a little while.
However, what happens when the itch in as sensitive an organ as eyes, not only continues persisting, but also turns out to be something else entirely.
The incident was brought to light in a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine. According to the paper, the 53-year-old unidentified man rushed to the emergency room of the University Hospital of Saint-Etienne after persisting itching in his right-eye.
Doctors Find Numerous Larvae on Man’s Cornea
The doctors took a closer look at the man’s eye and were shocked to find out that the man’s eye had “more than a dozen mobile, translucent larvae” around the cornea. At the hospital, the man informed the doctors that he was gardening near a farm housing horses and sheep earlier when he felt something enter his eyes, and soon started feeling the nagging irritation.
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How the French Gardner was Left with Just One Option
The man was diagnosed with external ophthalmomyiasis., which according to a paper is “infestation of outer structure of the eye by fly larvae”. The case’s severity was added due to the fact that larvae’scan’t be easily removed owing to their small size. When tried to have the larvae removed by any non-medical procedure, the situation may turn worse as the flies have “oral hooks” which they can use to cling to the cornea.
Procedure Successful, Man Reported Recovered
The only solution? Removing the larvae, each one by one, using forceps. The man went through the ordeal and had the doctors remove larvae. The procedure was fortunately successful and the man was reported recovered after his follow-up.
Meanwhile, the doctors were able to identify the larvae called the sleep bot fly (Oestrusovis) larvae.
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