A South Carolina woman who had been urinating worms for the past three months was found to have an infestation of fly larvae in her bladder.
The Daily Mail reports that an unidentified 50-year-old woman visited a hospital in South Carolina and complained of worms wriggling in her urine. She also said urination was extremely painful and that she was suffering from a pain in her side.
Doctors ran tests which revealed multiple small, dark larvae that appeared clear to the naked eye. Further testing on the larvae revealed that they were not technically worms, but Diptera flies, which are known to cause a condition called myiasis.
According to the National Library of Medicine, myiasis is a term used to describe the invasion of tissues or organs of vertebrates with the larvae (maggots) of dipterous flies.
Urinary myiasis occurs when an individual drinks a water source that has been contaminated with fly eggs. The condition is normally only seen in developing countries, or in people whose immune systems have been compromised, according to the Daily Mail.
Doctors in South Carolina had never seen a case of urinary myiasis in an American citizen before, and they had to consult medical literature in order to treat the patient. After researching, they prescribed her with ivermectin, a drug used to treat parasites.
The patient in question reportedly has no idea how she became infected, though she did recently relocate to Charleston, South Carolina, from Mexico, where myiasis is more common.
After one week of treatment, the patient claims that she is now worm-free.
