Random Most Horrifying Things Found Living Inside People (19 items)

• (#7) A Fish Swam Up 14 Year-Old's Urethra

  I'm sure you've heard of that little fish (the candirú) that will swim into your urethra if you ever whip it out in the Amazon. It's real - and a real good reason to never whip it out in the Amazon. But there's another, related story that you should know. Think of it as a cautionary tale about handling exotic pets.

  In India, a 14 year-old-boy went to the hospital complaining of pain in his bladder and an inability to urinate. The doctors did an ultrasound and discovered an object in the bladder, blocking his urethra. The boy was taken to surgery where the doctors cut him open. Can you guess what they found?

  The fish was 2 cm long and lodged all the way up inside his bladder. And here comes the best part. When asked how it got there, this was the boy's answer:

  While he was cleaning the fish tank in his house, he was holding a fish in his hand and went to the toilet for passing urine. While he was passing urine, the fish slipped from his hand and entered his urethra and then he developed all these symptoms.

  After surgery, the boy was released, but taken to psychiatric counseling.
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  (#9) Maggots Grew Inside This Guy's Scalp

  You know that feeling you get when someone says, like, "There's a small spider in your hair," and for a second, you can feel it? Your head starts itching, your scalp tingling, and you swear you can feel your hair moving. Only after sufficient scratching/flailing/shrieking does the horror and sensational torture subside. Afterward, you feel crazy. But sometimes there is a bug on your head and no one tells you until it's too late.

  In 2007, Colorado native Aaron Dallas was having the worst case of itchy scalp in his life. It had been weeks since it started. He had tried special shampoos, ointments, and even salves (whatever those are), but nothing would help. Over time, the itching took on a life of its own. Dallas said he could feel his scalp moving. He felt sharp pains that knocked him to his knees.

  He said, "I'd put my hand back there and feel them moving. I thought it was blood coursing through my head. I could hear them. I actually thought I was going crazy."

  "They" were maggots. Five baby botfly larva implanted in his dome by a mosquito, probably during a trip to Belize he took earlier in the year. When doctors got Dallas under the knife, they found open pit in his scalp that was crawling with the bugs, all about half the size of a penny.

  It really makes you scratch your head.
  
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  (#4) A Spider Burrowed Its Way Into An Australian Man's Stomach

  On a 2014 trip to Bali, Dylan Maxwell experienced the surreal. A spider had made its way into Maxwell's stomach via an old appendix scar on his stomach. It traveled from his stomach up his torso, leaving a strange red line as a trail on Maxwell's body. It reached all the way up to his chest. Three days later, he had the spider removed. 
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  (#6) A Botfly Laid Eggs In A Five-Year-Old's Eyeball

  There are few things worse than getting something in your eye. On the bright side, the temporary blindness is usually easy to alleviate. Simply remove the eyelash, piece of glitter, speck of dust, whatever, and go on about your day. For one 5 year-old boy in Honduras, however, the solution was a bit more complicated (and expensive). That's because the thing in his eye was a Human Botfly. Do yourself a favor and never, ever Google "botfly." And for the love of kittens, do NOT then click "Images."

  These little buggers are very selfish. The lady botfly lays her eggs on the outside of another living creature (like a mosquito) that will drop them onto bigger animals so that when the eggs hatch, the larvae can squirm inside the host to brew. Some species of botfly prefer to burrow inside warm-blooded animals, like squirrels, horses, and human people.

  A visit from a botfly parasite is usually not that hard to fix - a simple surgical procedure will do the trick. But the larva living inside the Honduran boy's face was both "late-stage" and camped out in his anterior orbit. That meant the surgery required a Buñuel-style incision on the old conjunctiva.
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  (#11) A Woman's Brain Tumor Turned Out to Be Tapeworm

  Gross in Phoenix: Rosemary Alvarez was convinced she had a brain tumor. With symptoms ranging from blurred vision to numbness in her limbs, she went to the E.R. twice and had a CAT scan - but the results always came up clear. Concerned, she finally convinced a neurosurgeon to do an M.R.I. When he looked at the results, he had Alvarez rushed into surgery right away.

  Did you ever see Kindergarten Cop? Nestled in Alvarez's brain - eating it - was a parasite known as the pork tapeworm. Even more distasteful: doctors said, "Someone, somewhere, had served her food that was tainted with the feces of a person infected with the pork tapeworm parasite."
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  (#14) A Pea Plant Was Growing Inside This Man's Lung

  In August 2010, Ron Sveden of Massachusetts was rushed to the hospital after his lung collapsed. He had been battling emphysema for months when his lung gave out. He assumed he would have a cancer diagnosis after he had some x-rays done, but what was actually growing in his lung wasn't a tumor - it was a pea plant. Mr. Sveden said the plant was about half an inch in size. 

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