A Florida man is breathing easier now that 150 live bugs have been removed from his nose.
The unidentified patient went to a hospital earlier this month after noticing that his whole face felt like it was on fire, according to a Friday report by Jacksonville’s First Coast News.
Although the man first started experiencing symptoms in October, it wasn’t until recently that they became serious.
“Over a couple hours my face just started swelling, my lips swelled, I could hardly talk,” the patient told First Coast News. “I couldn’t even get up to go to the bathroom without my nose starting to bleed.”
The man visited HCA Florida Memorial Hospital in Jacksonville and consulted with Dr. David Carlson, an ear, nose and throat specialist who was on call.
Carlson was shocked when he looked inside the man’s nose with a camera. He saw dozens and dozens of bugs feeding on the nose and sinus cavity ― some as big as the end of his pinkie.
“I knew he was in big trouble, there was erosion that was occurring near the skull base in very close proximity to his eye and his brain,” Carlson said.
At first, the physician tried using suction to remove the insects, which were in the larval stage. But they were too large, so he had to extract them one by one from the man’s nose.
“They were right up against his skull base, right under the brain, had they gone through that it could have killed him,” Carlson said.
The bugs have since been sent to an epidemiologist to determine their species. The patient is expected to make a full recovery.
It remains a mystery how the larvae got inside the man’s nose, but he told First Coast News that the problem might have stemmed from his bad hygiene habits when handling dead fish.
“Before I would rinse my hands in the river, now I’ll use cleaner to do a better job and not touch my nose or my hand,” the man told the station.