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A woman in Scotland had the shock of her life after realising her persistent nosebleeds were not caused by a burst blood vessel from an earlier motorcycle accident, but a 3-inch-long leech (7.5cm) which had been living in her nose for more than a month.
Daniela Liverani, 24, from Edinburgh, told BBC Radio Scotland that she discovered there was something in her nose while she was in the shower. She said: "my nasal passages would open up because of the steam and the heat and the water, and it would come out quite far, about as far as my lip."
Liverani told the Sunday Mail that she initially dismissed it as congealed blood from her nosebleeds, but later realised it was a leech after seeing the ridges on the insect's body.
BBC reported that Liverani believed that she had picked up the parasite while she was backpacking in Vietnam and Cambodia.
According to The Telegraph, the young woman tried to remove the creature from her nose. Liverani said: "I tried to blow him out and grab him but I couldn't get a grip of him before he retreated back up my nose."
She later sought help at the hospital, where she was examined by medical staff with a torch before they tried to extract the parasite with nasal forceps and tweezers, while keeping her stationary on the bed.
Liverani reportedly said that the extraction process was an agony, as she could "feel the leech tugging at the inside of [her] nose" while the doctor tried to pull it out.
The Scot also described the parasite to be as long as her forefinger and as fat as her thumb.
In The Telegraph's report, Mark Siddal, curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and an expert on leeches, also said: "Daniela could have picked up this leech from water in Vietnam, if she had been swimming. Or it could have gone in through her mouth, as she was drinking water."
Tuesday, Oct 14, 2014
AsiaOne
