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A BACKPACKER WHO suffered from nosebleeds during a trip to south-east Asia came home to discover she had a three-inch leech living up her nose.
Daniela Liverani nicknamed the animal Mr Curly.
The 24-year-old from Glasgow told the Scottish Daily Record she noticed a lump poking out of her right nostril, but initially thought it was just congealed blood as she had fallen off a motorbike while in Vietnam.
However, she soon noticed something was amiss:
When I was in the shower, he would come right out as far as my bottom lip and I could see him sticking out the bottom of my nose. So when that happened last Thursday, I jumped out of the shower to look really closely in the mirror and I saw ridges on him. That’s when I realised he was an animal.
Liverani went to A&E, where doctors struggled to pull the worm out using tweezers. She told the Mail Online:
It was agony – whenever the doctor grabbed him, I could feel the leech tugging at the inside of my nose.
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However,the leech was finally extracted. It turned out to be about three inches long. Liverani told the Record:
At one point, I could feel him up at my eyebrow. I asked the doctor what would’ve happened if I hadn’t gone to hospital and she said he’d probably have worked his way into my brain.
Many leeches attach to the skin, using three-bladed jaws set at angles to each other. They can be very difficult to detach.
In one 2005 case, a 55-year-old Chinese woman presented to doctors in Hong Kong after three weeks of having a blocked nose. She was found to have a large leech living in her nasal cavity, which had to be removed under local anaesthetic.
As if it couldn’t get any more horrifying, in 2002 a young girl being treated in Malaysia for bleeding was found to have a leech living in her vagina. It had to be flushed out with water.
All three cases are thought to have picked up the leeches while swimming.
Thursday 14 November, 2024
Thursday 14 November, 2024
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Woman finds three-inch leech living up her nose
A BACKPACKER WHO suffered from nosebleeds during a trip to south-east Asia came home to discover she had a three-inch leech living up her nose.
Daniela Liverani nicknamed the animal Mr Curly.
The 24-year-old from Glasgow told the Scottish Daily Record she noticed a lump poking out of her right nostril, but initially thought it was just congealed blood as she had fallen off a motorbike while in Vietnam.
However, she soon noticed something was amiss:
Liverani went to A&E, where doctors struggled to pull the worm out using tweezers. She told the Mail Online:
However,the leech was finally extracted. It turned out to be about three inches long. Liverani told the Record:
Many leeches attach to the skin, using three-bladed jaws set at angles to each other. They can be very difficult to detach.
In one 2005 case, a 55-year-old Chinese woman presented to doctors in Hong Kong after three weeks of having a blocked nose. She was found to have a large leech living in her nasal cavity, which had to be removed under local anaesthetic.
As if it couldn’t get any more horrifying, in 2002 a young girl being treated in Malaysia for bleeding was found to have a leech living in her vagina. It had to be flushed out with water.
All three cases are thought to have picked up the leeches while swimming.
More horror: Can you make it through this video of a giant leech sucking down a huge worm?>
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daniela liverani leech leech in nose mr curly Nose sucker Vietnam