Man gets pregnant in his eye with fly larvae

One man's itchy eye turned out to be much more sinister when he discovered a fly had laid more than a dozen eggs.

The unnamed man from France was admitted to the University Hospital of Saint-Etienne after dealing with an irritation in his right eye. Instead of being sent on his way with some eye drops and a few days' rest, he was faced with forceps to fish out a bundle of fly larvae (aka maggots) one-by-one.

According to a report published by the New England Journal of Medicine, the 53-year-old man informed doctors he had felt something fly into his eye. Doctors believe the mortifying ordeal happened when he was gardening.

Test results revealed that "more than a dozen mobile, translucent larvae" were squirming around the man's cornea and in the conjunctiva, the lining of the eye. And while this is enough to make anyone wince, the man was incredibly lucky. In rare cases, the larvae can burrow their way inside the eyeball. Once inside, they can cause more severe damage to vision.

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Medical professionals identified them to be Oestrus Ovis, commonly known as sheep bot fly. They are typically found around livestock and often deliver their offspring in the nostrils of sheep and goats. Rarely adult female flies can lay eggs in the human eyeball, but the larvae generally don't survive.

The patient was diagnosed with external ophthalmomyiasis, which doctors described as "an infestation of the outer structures of the eye by fly larvae." After the horrific incident, doctors prescribed the man with topical antibiotic treatments in case they missed any critters.

After ten days, the man was back to his usual self with no symptoms.

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