The Great Smoky Mountain Journal
Source: Fox News
Posted: Tuesday, January 01, 2019 02:33 PM
Health: Rare Eye "Worm" Feeds On Tears
According to CBS News, one 26-year-old woman from Oregon became the first human ever infected by an eye worm that has only been seen in cattle.
This is how it started. She said her eye felt irritated for several days, almost like there was a hair in it.
A week later, she pulled a small worm off of her eyes, according to Richard Bradbury, a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researcher. He is also the lead author of a case report of the event.
Once this woman made it to the doctor, two more worms were pulled from her eye. It might be hard to believe, but an optometrist found three more the next day.
Bradbury said 14 worms were removed from her left eye over the course of 20 days. They can't be removed all at once, but only as they became visible.
CBS News explained this worm is called Thelazia gulosa. According to Bradbury, it causes eye irritation, but typically won't create permanent damage. The worm will crawl over the eye and under the eyelid and it will feed on your tears.
"It's just really gross and very psychologically disturbing to see multiple small worms crawling across the surface of your eye," Bradbury said.
Before you let yourself worry, Bradbury also said this is a very rare situation.
Researchers suspected she became infected while horseback riding in a cattle farming region.
The worms are transmitted by face flies, according to Dr. Audrey Schuetz, an associate professor of pathology with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
Dr Schuetz said the flies are attracted to the moisture and salt in our eyes and will transfer the larvae when they feed on the moist part around on our eyes.
Typically we shoo those flies away when they try to land on us.
According to the CBS News article, in the end, the worms were removed without any permanent damage.
There is a study that was posted and published Feb. 12 in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine.
