Comments on: That Botfly Story You’ve Heard From Me 10 Times Already

By: Estella

Estella — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 23:59:44 +0000

I would like to point out that whoever said you cannot get bot flies in Africa is wrong.
my dad went (Gambia) about 5 months ago and noticed his feet turning black and numb then after hours and hours of poking around found 9 of them in his feet.
They had been chewing on the nerves!

By: liz

liz — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:54:10 +0000

me s-o-o-o-o-o-o sorry wat happened to you…..did u c wat happened to a 5 year old in costa reca? he had 1 n his eye. s-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o sad!

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:22:40 +0000

My name is Ben and I gave birth to a botfly larvae today. We spent 8 days in Costa Rica on our honeymoon in late September. I don’t recall any mosquito bites but one must have gotten to me.

I had an oozing lump on my head for over a month but I don’t care for doctors and it wasn’t infected so I left it alone. Earlier this week, my lovely wife insisted I go to a doctor and see what was wrong so I went. I was told I had a sebaceous cyst and I had to go to Plastic surgeon to have it removed. I couldn’t get an appointment right away so I did some research on cysts. By divine intervention, I guess, the first link I found had a reference to a botflies. With nothing better on which to waste my time, I clicked to see where this folly led. Our travel to Central America, the life cycle of the botfly and my symptoms indicated a strong possibility of a botfly. The first two doctors spent a grand total of 1 minute listening to my symptoms and travel history and about 4 seconds looking at the bump on my head. Not exaggerating.

I went to a high dollar plastic surgeon today. He politely listened to my travel history, symptoms and detailed description of botflies. Proceeded to look at the bump for a minute, actually looked at it. He said it was a cyst and injected it a steroid and lidocaine to shrink it for later removal. Being a funny guy, he said he was fresh out of small needles so he would have to use a big fat one. A few minutes later, his nurse stops by to look under the gauze and sees something poking out. She grabs some tweezers and starts pulling. I told her to pull gently so it would come out in one piece. I guess the lidocaine did it job and fully relaxed the little bastard. After a few “oh my god” “this is disgusting” “the Doc has to see this” I’m the proud father of a 2cm long Botfly larvae.

To summarize: Two-three weeks after return from Costa Rica, I get a itchy welt on my head. About a week after that, it starts weeping clear fluid. About two weeks after that, I noticed a wound site. It never gets infected and it never closes. No pain or anything yet but it isn’t going away. Sometimes the fluid is a little bloody red but never blood. The last few days, I had stabbing burning pain for maybe one minute once a day.

US doctors have no clue about this. The last doctor spent time listening to me but he didn’t believe it until he saw it.

By: billdo

billdo — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:14:49 +0000

I dunno

By: slayden

slayden — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:52:59 +0000

Got back from a trip to Belize a week ago and am pretty covered with mosquito bites which are collectively 1-2 weeks old, and seem to be “itchier” than typical bites. They are not really swelling up or anything (yet?), but still have a potent itch. I have scratched most to the point of having scabby wounds on the top, which could be either concealing a circular air hole (or this scratch scab wound itself is the precurser to the air hole?). I do not have any localized pain, open or oozing wounds, or really enlarged bite sites beyond a basic bite…… Does this match anyone’s “early signs” of botfly or have I escaped with only a bunch of bad mosquito bites?

By: sightunseen

sightunseen — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 10:38:50 +0000

I’m quite surprised that no one has made a joke about the scene from
‘Aliens’ where the creature burst out of the guys chest. Or maybe its just me.

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 12:25:51 +0000

Wish I’d printed this lot off during my many visits to my GP clinic. I kept telling them I had something moving in my back. I kept telling them that I’d been in the Peruvian rainforest. I kept telling them that it was like a red hot needle pushing into my back (so painful I had to stop the car to recover). I kept asking them why the wound would not heal. I TOLD THEM IT WAS ALIVE!!! But 5 weeks and 2 strong courses of antibiotics later I was beside myself and went to A&E. A scan showed a foreign body. I assured them that it was animate but they said not, they said that it was not waving - how terribly droll. A doctor cut me open and found nothing. I suggested that whatever it was had retreated down into it’s bunker. They smiled condescendingly and sent me away for a week. 2 days ago and 5 weeks after returning from Peru, a wonderful lady surgeon opened me up again and removed what looked like a pea or seed head. By the time she had washed up the little bleeder was crawling across the table and we were both retching! It was MASEEEEV!!! Really fat, it had abviously been having a whale of a time in there! I had been very sick in the jungle and I’m not sure if this was related, but I am totally traumatised at this point and keep wondering if there are any more in there. If you think you have one print off the info for your GP, they know jock all about anything odd and never listen to what the patient has to say, I am proof of that. Makes for a great story though and the photos are so gross they fascinate everyone! Good luck to all you hosts.

By: Trina

Trina — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:15:05 +0000

It was a Botfly maggot!!! Gabe came home last night, he squeezed the bump and sure enough - the maggot poked out and went back in - poked out and went back in - did it a few times and then we decided to go up to the ER to let them pull it out - we needed an extra body to help so I could run the video cam. We put petroleum jelly on it for about 1 minute then wiped it off, the doctor (and 10 fascinated nurses) came in, Gabe squeezed and like a cannon - that maggot came flying out. Goo all over the place and all over me and the maggot landed on my video camera. It was so gross! Mystery solved! Gagarific….

By: Trina

Trina — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:13:35 +0000

Ok, so my husband and I got married in Mexico, then traveled to Costa Rica and Belie…We were on the road for a total of 30 days. We have been home for about 2 weeks now and he has this THING on his head that is not getting better with antibiotics (that he has been on for 10 days now) and has been periodically shooting pain through his head. It was oozing puss at first (2 weeks ago) and then it bled out watery blood on his pillow one night about 5 nights ago. He has 2 really hard lymph nodes on the side of his neck. We have been to the ER twice - then to the ear nose and throat doc, now have had 4 visits to the infectious disease specialist. All blood work is clear and no growth on the culture. Today, the ID said it might be a bot fly! GAG!!! I was gagging the whole way home as my husband was like, “cool, it’s my mini me!” We go tomorrow to the dermatologist and he’s gonna cut him open and we will see what is hiding inside. We had the same experience in the Belize jungle, my husband’s back and head was COVERED in mosquitoes and the jungle guide didn’t have one on him (lucky punk). I’ll video tape the madness - I can’t wait ;)

By: Yuck!! « Aliens in This World

Yuck!! « Aliens in This World — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:21:14 +0000

[...] have happily lived my entire life without learning about the equine-attacking botfly, much less the human-attacking botfly. But since I didn’t, I’m generously sharing this valuable knowledge with [...]