Woman has 14 parasitic worms removed from her eye
A woman has had 14 worms removed from her eye after suffering from a rare parasitic infection.
Believed to be caused by flies, Abby Beckley, from Oregon, US, was diagnosed with Thelazia gulosa in 2016 – the type of eye worm normally reserved for cattle but has never been seen in humans, The Washington Post reports.
Ms Beckley had been horseback riding and fishing in rural Gold Beach, Oregon.
She began suffering from a week-long eye irritation and plucked a small, translucent worm at less than 1.2cm long, from one of her eyes.
The woman said the worm was "alive and squiggling around".
"I'll never forget the look on the intern's face when he saw one squiggle across my eye," she said on visiting the ophthalmologist.
She had some removed by local doctors before a team of scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention diagnosed her properly. In total, she had 14 of the grubs removed over two weeks.
The then 26-year-old didn't suffer from any further irritation and no other worms were found after 14 were removed.
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CDC's Parasite Diagnostics and Biology Laboratory parasitologist Richard Bradbury published an article about the unusual case in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
Mr Bradbury had to read German papers from 1928 and have them translated to determine Ms Beckley had been infected with Thelazia gulosa eye worms.
In the paper, he wrote, "We never expected to see this particular species in a human".
He said it was previously thought only two different types of eyes worms infected humans worldwide. There are now three.
If the worms remain in a person's eye for a prolonged time, they can cause corneal scarring and even blindness, according to the researchers.
