A 35-year-old man who visited the doctor after experiencing blurry vision and redness in his left eye for eight months has discovered he had a worm in his eye.
The New England Journal of Medicine has shared a case study on ocular gnathostomiasis, a rare parasitic condition that is caused by consuming raw or undercooked fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians or mammals that carry the larvae.
According to a story in People, the patient in the case study was a man from rural India, who was found to have consumed infected chicken and fish after the diagnosis was made.
When he first sought medical care, the man had been dealing with blurry vision and eye irritation for several months. Upon examination, the patient’s eyes were bloodshot and his pupil was fixed and dilated.
Additionally, his vision in his left eye was only 20/80, People wrote, and he had panuveitis, an inflammation from the front to the back of the eye.
The back of the patient’s eye was examined and “a worm was seen moving sluggishly in the posterior segment”, according to the study.
Doctors then performed a pars plana vitrectomy to take out the worm.
The patient was then prescribed oral and ocular glucocorticoids due to the severity of the case. After eight weeks, his symptoms had subsided, but the man still only had 20/40 vision in his left eye due to the development of a cataract.
More reading
Demodex infestation: Diagnosis and management
Shocking video: parasitic worm found in eyeball
Live parasitic worm found in eyeball
