Alaska News

Flesh-eating worms found in British woman's ear

If this doesn't give you the heebie-jeebies, you're just not human.

A British woman had flesh-eating worms removed from her ear after she began suffering severe headaches and heard scratching sounds in her head following a trip to Peru earlier this year, according to Sky News.

Rochelle Harris, 27, told The Daily Mail she developed shooting pains down the side of her face shortly after her return.

The next morning, she woke up to find her pillow soaked in fluid from her ear.

Doctors first dismissed the symptoms as an ear infection, but specialists were shocked to find her ear teeming with flesh-eating worms.

No damage had been done to her ear drum, blood vessels or facial nerves, but doctors did find the maggots had chewed a 12-millimeter hole in her ear canal.

Luckily, she suffered no permanent hearing damage and has since recovered.

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The maggots were apparently larvae of the New World screw-worm fly, eradicated in the US in 1959 but which still plague livestock in parts of Central and South America.

Harris was infected when a swarm of flies pestered her during a hike in Peru, and one of them flew into her ear and laid some eggs.

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