Nostril-wedged maggots of Portsmouth: Otorhinolaryngologist's expert opinion explained

[doctorow]

[Permalink]

[noirling]

So… No.

[Spence]

I think it will dissuade them. I’m almost dissuaded from coming back to boingboing for fear of more nose maggot articles.

[mtdna]

This patient was a chronic Chewy Spree snorter. Now look: http://youtu.be/-UMCoR9Qd9k#t=00m38s

[jake0748]

“Basically, I just made that shit up to scare parents and kids away from grinding up candy and snorting it. Because, you know that’s such a rampant problem in this country”.

Christ, what an asshole.

[anon26625345]

‘Well, not smarties per se, but I’ve definitely seen it happen. Now stop asking questions or I’ll mark that you’re a troublemaker on your permanent record.’

[scratcheee]

Well, that explains how I can get worms from eating boogers.

Now if I can only find a doctor to tell me how the funny face I’m making can get “stuck that way” if one of my classmates hits me in the back while I’m making it.

[timquinn]

It was grade school drug propaganda that convinced me that authority is not to be trusted, believed or respected.

So there is that.

[halloween_jack_]

Damnit, Jim, I’m an otorhinolaryngologist, not an entomologist! How the fuck do I know what maggots eat?

[Eark_the_Bunny]

Yeah, we need some Nose Unicorn chasers.

[SpaceDoggity]

So is he suggesting that flies routinely go up noses in search of places to lay eggs, or is he suggesting that maggots arise by spontaneous generation?

[Andrew_Price]

It’s gonna take a lot more than a couple maggots to ruin my fun.

[Phyto]

While it might be unlikely to happen in kids who snort smarties, it does happen, and it’s called nasal myiasis. A review of maggot infections in general:

Myiasis

“Myiasis”
Fabio Francesconia and Omar Lupi
Clin Microbiol Rev. 2012 January; 25(1): 79–105.
doi: 10.1128/CMR.00010-11

[SpaceDoggity]

Oh, I don’t think anyone is questioning the reality of myiasis. The sources on nasal myiasis cited in the paper you link are mostly in India, Brazil, and the like, places where fly species that are responsible for cutaneous myiasis are readily found; the risk factors for nasal myiasis, often caused by those same fly species, are chiefly things like leprosy and syphilis leading to secondary atrophic rhinitis. The only papers I could find involving myiasis attributable to fly species commonly found in New England involved a Danish patient with a broken nose and an elderly Korean patient in a coma. I have no trouble believing that bacteria or fungi could grow up there, especially in the presence of food; those are ubiquitous in the environment, and there’s plenty of air passing through the nose to carry spores. Talk of maggots, though, especially in the absence of published case studies, does little more than undermine the credibility of the sources. That said, if this isn’t a fiction, I’d love to read the case studies. I’m weird like that.