Comments on: Botflies redux.

Botflies redux.

unSane — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 21:29:52 -0800

Previously, from head. From eye (Snopes, w/pictures). Wikipedia.

By: Dasein

Dasein — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 21:34:59 -0800

These Chinese giants sure are coming in handy these days. No, wait...

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 22:03:10 -0800

How lovely.

By: jmhodges

jmhodges — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 22:13:49 -0800

Oh. Oh, so, so gross. Awesome.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 22:14:14 -0800

And then there's a human parasite (parasitic twin). An, uh oh, carniverous willie parasite, the candiru fish. A parasite infested intestinal tract. In India I contracted roundworms a number of times. They can grow pretty loooong. nnnnggg. They take a weird journey through the body en route to the intestinal tract.

By: gottabefunky

gottabefunky — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 22:17:21 -0800

It's a boy!

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 22:19:36 -0800

I contracted some kind of near microscopic worm, probably from Japan (it's very clean there but lily white bellies might not be ready for some water borne parasites, beware). Strangely enough I had a dream about worms a few days before I was diagnosed.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 22:22:41 -0800

Oh, and I'm always amazed to see how thick the skin covering the skull is, given that subjectively it feels so hard and close to the bone.

By: roomwithaview

roomwithaview — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 22:42:34 -0800

From the Wikipedia link: "They do not kill the host animal, and thus are true parasites (though some species of rodent-infesting botflies do consume the host's testes)." Uh, interesting.

By: Brittanie

Brittanie — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 22:48:59 -0800

Dude, this whole thread is fkked up. Sweet dreams, everyone.

By: TwelveTwo

TwelveTwo — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 23:12:55 -0800

Now, I hate everything.

By: jonson

jonson — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 23:22:22 -0800

Damn you, unSane. Damn you all to hell!

By: j-urb

j-urb — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 23:29:58 -0800

grooooooooss.

By: fenriq

fenriq — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 23:33:08 -0800

Second time I've seen this link today and I'm still not gonna click it and look. A man's got to know his limitations and I know this would scar my brain.

By: tmcw

tmcw — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 00:12:43 -0800

"This video has been removed due to terms of use violation." Ehh... maybe I should be thankful for that.

By: monocyte

monocyte — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 00:28:08 -0800

Before the original link was taken down this came up as an additional further link (warning: parasites + heart surgery.) Any doctors: what the hell? Is this a hydatid cyst? And will I ever be able to sleep again?

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 00:53:07 -0800

An, uh oh, carniverous willie parasite, the candiru fish. Perhaps those who fear candiru attacks should consider getting an apadravya (NSFW) in order to obstruct the trespasser's route up the urethra.

By: Tuffy

Tuffy — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 01:04:20 -0800

I like that botflies have the evil little spines that make it extra hard and painful to remove them. And as they mature they stick a little breathing tube out of the wound, like a periscope.

By: Tiresias

Tiresias — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 01:10:11 -0800

Not to be all heartlessly (*cough*) clinical, but that Wormy Heart video is incredible --- it looks like they were living in one of the atria (or maybe ventricles, I'm not a cardiac surgeon....) but surely they weren't, because why weren't they flushed out with each contraction? It just astounds me, and no matter how many times I watch it, I can't figure it out. On a separate note: I've both dissected cadavers and personally witnessed a friend remove a parasite from his arm with the aid of a lighter and a pair of tweezers in an almost hallucinogenically groteque display, and this still kind of squicks me out. But if you are willing (or able) to look past that, this is almost a kind of horrific testimony to the pragmatism of capital-L Life: It does what it needs to do and it does what works, no matter how many stomaches it turns in the process.

By: blacklite

blacklite — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 02:08:53 -0800

Huh. Count me in with those who know their limitations. The comments here are interesting, though.

By: joedan

joedan — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 02:16:46 -0800

Does anyone have another link to the video?

By: hal9k

hal9k — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 03:43:28 -0800

People, I think you're overreacting. This is normal and in most cases quite healthy for the host as these so called "parasites" tend to feast okay, its posting from the other side of the brain but will be done soon on dead tissue and yucky things your body doesn't need won't let me sleep. Should see the crap they make me eat anyway. I think I read somewhere that there learned AJAX. Won't be long now. They'll discard are more foreign organ alad at Olive Gard isms in the body than indigenous. I, for one, welcome my little "housekeepers."oming back. Please kill m

By: jfuller

jfuller — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 03:47:46 -0800

Humans were never meant to live on this planet.

By: maryh

maryh — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 03:49:01 -0800

Merry fucking Christmas to you, too.

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 05:02:55 -0800

maryh: "Merry fucking Christmas to you, too." Hey, I haven't looked at it either, but I'd much rather see this, no matter how vile, than yet another bunch of cute furry animals.

By: Land Stander

Land Stander — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 05:50:55 -0800

Worms... IN YOU'RE FACE! ("champagne! number one!")

By: evilcolonel

evilcolonel — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 06:36:42 -0800

The desire to read this thread makes me glad the img tag is gone.

By: Bravocharlie

Bravocharlie — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 06:54:44 -0800

Maaan. Just what I needed to cure a heavy hang over.

By: Liosliath

Liosliath — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 07:02:31 -0800

Aren't insects the shit? Seriously. Though the first link is down, I saw the botfly/stomach scenario on an Animal Planet special - "Parasites!" or something like that. I think the guy gave the larvae a name - George. While it was living in him.

By: StarForce5

StarForce5 — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 07:05:36 -0800

Nature is wonderful! I need to go shop for bubble rooms now.

By: punkrockrat

punkrockrat — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 07:06:26 -0800

ugh. i hate when i click on links like these. yuck!

By: unSane

unSane — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 07:32:10 -0800

The heartworm video is amazing. Sorry the first link got deleted. Here's another botfly extraction, from the back this time.

By: hojoki

hojoki — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 07:43:31 -0800

Oh man, those images were gross; I'll never be the same. "Humans were never meant to live on this planet." So true! There's no way we're indigenous to this planet. *shudder*

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 08:00:06 -0800

That extraction from the heart was a new one for me. What in the hell was that white lump they pulled out? It didn't look like an insect--more like a big piece of pasta. I have to say, it didn't appear that the doctors were acting terribly quickly in that video. If I were one of 'em, I'd be yankin' and grabbin' those fuckers out of there one after the other. And I'd also make damned sure the cavity they were extracted from was empty afterwords. It looked like they pulled out the one piece of pasta, thought "Oh how interesting..." meanwhile I'm here yelling at my monitor, "There's more! Look right there!"

By: Verdandi

Verdandi — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 08:33:51 -0800

Now my eyes feel weird. Thanks! That was pretty cool, though.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 08:46:07 -0800

Video is gone. I'm not sure I mind.

By: papakwanz

papakwanz — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:37:53 -0800

The horror... the horror...

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:39:45 -0800

A pity the first vid is down of the guy extracting the botfly larva (the second of the day) from his skinny lower abdomen/hip with his beloved badly focusing the camera and her making the great comment, "It's a boy!", when the white, wriggling, definitely squicky larva(presumably "George") was painfully tweezed out by its head. That had to be a horrifying experience and he, the host, handled it bravely. Interesting the guy was wearing a winter hat during the procedure. I think when dealing with the EEEK factor of life, it helps to go into Interested Scientist Mode, with one's inner child peeking out from behind yelling EWWWWWwwwwwww!

By: grapefruitmoon

grapefruitmoon — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 10:05:52 -0800

The wrong thing to read before dinner. Clearly. I should know better, but it's like a trainwreck or something "Ooooh! Parasites! Where?!" and it's always gross. And awesome. Definitely awesome and definitely gross.

By: FunkyHelix

FunkyHelix — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 10:10:19 -0800

barf

By: iamck

iamck — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 10:38:27 -0800

Traveling in rural Brazil, I´m fairly certain I´m full of worms. If they don´t mess with me, I don´t mess with them.

By: alizarin

alizarin — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 11:11:50 -0800

Not all intestinal worms are bad.

By: ktrey

ktrey — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 11:12:52 -0800

Don't forget, bugs have their own bugs to deal with too: The Gordian Worm lives inside a cricket for long periods of time, eventually injecting chemicals into it's host that cause the poor critter to commit suicide. Also, the interesting and strangely beautiful alien-landscapes created by Cordiceps Fungi. <a

By: ktrey

ktrey — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 11:13:27 -0800

Oops. Second link here.

By: HyperBlue

HyperBlue — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 11:27:13 -0800

This thread is not complete without revisiting Colonix Blue's: “The death that existed inside of me” photo gallery.

By: mosessis

mosessis — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 11:29:16 -0800

no, seriously, what were those things the doctors were pulling from the heart? i couldn't understand what the doctors were saying. how can we find out what those were???

By: Morrigan

Morrigan — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 12:32:09 -0800

Tell me that Colonix thing is not for real.

By: es_de_bah

es_de_bah — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 12:54:00 -0800

thanks for the links, ktrey. how in the hell does that worm fit inside that tiny cricket?

By: raygirvan

raygirvan — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 13:10:20 -0800

Tell me that Colonix thing is not for real It's for real, but not what the vendors claim. It's just a cast of the colon, such as you excrete after taking psyllium-based products, psyllium being a gel-forming bulking agent.

By: gottabefunky

gottabefunky — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 13:30:35 -0800

How did that person get ravioli in their ventricle?

By: monocyte

monocyte — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 14:18:03 -0800

Ok, after a little research I'm going to tentatively guess that the heart thing is a hydatid cyst, a consequence of zoonotic infection with Echinococcus worms. The worms form a cyst, a walled-off chamber of tissue, which gradually swells. Bad things happen when the cyst gets too large or *silent scream* ruptures. The pocket that they're draining might be associated with the muscular walls of the heart, but it's not actually in the chambers, so no blood comes out under suction. Google image search will give you plenty of images for comparison. What the surgeons are doing seems to line up with the description given in this summary. First the cyst is located surgically based on the radiologic findings; I think you can see it in the first few seconds of the video as an unusual swelling on the surface of the heart. Then the cyst is cut open and suctioned out, which forms the rest of the video. The white pads surrounding the cyst in this scene are probably soaked with cetrimide, which should help protect the surrounding tissue from additional wormy grossness. After they finish up suctioning, they will inject the cyst with a cetrimide solution, then with saline, and sew it back closed. Hydatid cysts aren't that common, thank god, and are geographically limited to where there's Echinococcus in an animal population. Cysts in the heart are supposed to be really rare; you normally see them in the lungs or liver, but they can go a lot of other places, including the eyes and brain. Eww.

By: unSane

unSane — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 15:20:33 -0800

/reeling I'm sorry, that Colonix thing requires a FPP and a LOT more explanation! /still reeling

By: mosessis

mosessis — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 15:29:40 -0800

monocyte, somehow i was hoping that an explanation would make me feel better. safer, perhaps. more at ease. this did not happen. i was really hoping those pasta shapes were not alive in any way. things buried just beneath my skin's surface: that's cool. i mean, i've had a few tics in my life; what's the big deal? but larvae on my heart? un uh. but, seriously, thank you for your guess. at least i can sleep tonight knowing that my animals probably don't have this infection and that i therefore probably don't have one of them things on my heart.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 15:55:48 -0800

Parasites suck. wow ktrey, That Gordian Worm story is astonishing. How the hell did that parasite concoct the exact neurochemical to induce the cricket to commit not just any old suicide, endangering the parasite puppet master, but the precise suicide that would enable the parasite to move on to greener pastures? Incredible. I didn't realise that a neurochemical could be 'manufactured' to cause a precise action. Recently, I had a brain procedure, which required my being awake but sedated. They offered me a drug to cause short term amnesia, Versed, but I wanted to remember everything and declined. It seemed like a scary idea, causing amnesia at will, like Men In Black with that flash gadget. Dang, been taking Cordyceps Fungi supplements, so now I got alien tummy. yikes. And wow, that heart surgery vid. A friend and fellow traveler in India, had brain surgery to remove beef tapeworm hyatatid cysts. Parasites can be a real drag, the critter ones and the human variations.

By: Liosliath

Liosliath — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 16:29:07 -0800

"guy extracting the botfly larva (the second of the day) from his skinny lower abdomen/hip with his beloved badly focusing the camera and her making the great comment, 'It's a boy!'" Hm, no. This was a guy who had the botfly in his stomach for some time, until it started to give him severe pains while he was at a hotel somewhere. He phoned the NHS (or something), and they told him all the tricks like petroleum jelly, painting over the hole with nail polish, etc... None of them worked, so he went into the hospital and had George extracted. The craziest part was the photographer he had with him missed the shot of the botfly being removed, so he asked the doc to put it back in for another go-round. And the doc DID.

By: Liosliath

Liosliath — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 16:29:48 -0800

And the Animal Planet special was "Eaten Alive!"

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 19:08:36 -0800

I realise Liosliath that the guy had the larva -two apparently- in his abdomen for some time because it takes while for the larva to grow that big. However, he said it was the second removal of a larva of the day and he had another inflamed and quite visible hole further up his abdomen, where he presumably took the other larva out earlier that same day. The doc put the sucker back so he could reshoot the extraction? Dang, the sacrifice for documentation!

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 19:17:54 -0800

PS The gently told story of the human botfly. And human botfly infestation, myiasis, of the scrotum.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 19:33:22 -0800

i'm in ur scrotum eatin ur ... NO IT'S TOO HORRIBLE. I CANNOT GO ON.

By: unSane

unSane — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 19:40:05 -0800

H.O.L.Y. S.H.I.T. I love the fact that the guy not only wrote a poem about the botfly in his scrotum, but made it a parody of 'The Night Before Christmas'.

By: Liosliath

Liosliath — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 20:28:59 -0800

"guy had the larva -two apparently" The guy I saw only mentioned one - since the video's down, was he a big teddybear-like guy with a beard? That Travel Clinic link is pretty cool. Nothing like reading about all the things I should have been scared of in Africa.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 20:57:17 -0800

How the hell did that parasite concoct the exact neurochemical to induce the cricket to commit not just any old suicide Still not as amazing as the wasp that envenoms its cockroach prey, turning it into a roach zombie that it then rides back to its wasp lair like a cowboy, where it then impregnates with its seed, which later emerge from the dead body like that scene in Alien. That is some crazy-awesome shit.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 21:16:19 -0800

The vid, the first link in the post, showed him having two holes on this abdomen and he said he'd already taken one out. This guy was thin. Lots of interesting parasite critters in Africa. My fav gory one is the Loa Loa, eye parasite. But elephantiasis (not safe for the squeamish or for work), caused by mosquito bite, like the botfly is pretty grisly as well. Then there is the Guinea Worm, sometimes as long as 3 feet. Should anyone in the NYC area need a doctor who is expert in tropical medicine and parasites, I'd like to highly recommend Dr. Kevin M. Cahill (212) 879-2607 850 5th Ave New York, NY 10021

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 21:30:00 -0800

PS omg, Civil_Disobedient , that wasp neuropuppeteer cowboy roach-on-a-leash alien parasite is incredible!

By: cyrusdogstar

cyrusdogstar — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 22:34:50 -0800

How the hell did that parasite concoct the exact neurochemical to induce the cricket to commit not just any old suicide, endangering the parasite puppet master, but the precise suicide that would enable the parasite to move on to greener pastures? Actually, according to my understanding of how evolution works, if a parasite evolves a "make my host kill itself when I'm all done" behavior, it will naturally occur such a way as to maximize the survival of the species. So I'd be surprised if it didn't end up how it did. Also, re: topic at large: ew. Totally not watching any of those videos, the still images linked in this thread are bad enough.

By: davy

davy — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 08:17:44 -0800

The clip of intestinal parasites makes me want to go drink Drano or spray Raid up my butt.

By: thecaddy

thecaddy — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 13:43:34 -0800

Ktrey-- You know, I'd heard about the bullet ants and cordiceps before, but the part I didn't know--the part that's truly horrifying and awesome in the original sense of the word--is that the ants have some understanding of what "one of us climbed up a tree" means, and drag the infected ant somewhere way the hell west of dodge. That's just freakin' cool.

By: deborah

deborah — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 21:53:24 -0800

There is no way I'm clicking those links. I'm still having nightmares from the weird fishies.

By: tellurian

tellurian — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 23:13:29 -0800

Here's another wasp for you Civil_Disobedient, the Tarantula Hawk. They rate a 4 on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index.