Chinese doctors recently saved a man’s life after removing a squirming 18-cm-long worm that had taken residence in his brain years after swallowing raw snake organs.
The lucky man, identified only as Li by Chinese news media, was recently rushed to a hospital in Hunan after he started experiencing sudden blackouts, seizures, and foaming at the mouth. His troubles had begun about a year ago when he experienced a sensation of a foreign object in his eye, described as a mosaic-like thing appearing in his vision. He sought medical attention, and while the ophthalmologist found nothing out of the ordinary after examining him, an MRI scan revealed a foreign object behind his eyes. However, because the vision problem had disappeared, he refused to undergo surgery and have the foreign object removed. Little did he know that his decision would allow an uninvited guest to settle and grow in his brain.
Late last month, Mr. Li’s condition took a turn for the worse. He suddenly experienced blacking out, foaming at the mouth, and convulsions. After conducting another MRI, doctors decided to perform a craniotomy and remove what they identified as a living worm inside the patient’s brain. During the procedure, one of the surgeons managed to carefully remove the long, white parasite intact, as it was wriggling.
After the successful procedure, a question remained: how did the worm get into the man’s brain? Questioned by the doctors, Li recalled that, years ago, he caught a snake and swallowed its raw gallbladder as a dare. He didn’t think too much of it at the time, but he had allowed a sparganum larvae inside the snake to enter his body and eventually make its way to his brain, where it took residence.
Sparganosis is the larvae of the tapeworm Spirometra mansoni, commonly found in frogs, snakes, and birds. Eating raw or partially cooked tadpoles, frog meat, snake meat, and other foods containing sparganosis poses a big risk of ingesting larvae that can eventually settle in the brain and cause all sorts of problems, even death.
Luckily for Li, he was discharged after 10 days and is expected to make a full recovery. Doctors hope that his case will act as a cautionary tale and prevent others from making the same mistake he did.
