Lump was a worm? If you saw a mysterious lump on your face move, how long would it take you to get it looked at by a doctor?.
A Russian woman took two weeks to get hers checked out, according to a new case report in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The 32-year-old took a selfie when the bump first appeared, just below her left eye. Five days later it was above the eye, before migrating to her upper lip.
It was only then she decided to get it looked at.
The doctor found she had been infected by Dirofilaria repens – a type of parasitic worm that doesn’t normally infect humans.
It’s spread by mosquitos – the woman said she’d recently been to a rural area just outside of the capital Moscow, and had been bitten several times.
Dirofilaria repens usually live inside cats, dogs, foxes and other wild animals. Once inside a human, they usually can’t reproduce.
“After removal of the worm, the patient had a full recovery,” the New England Journal of Medicine reported.
The doctor who treated her – Vladimir Kartashe – said cases of human infection by Dirofilaria repens are on the rise.
