In some cases, people wish they were a fly on the wall – but maybe not the intestinal wall in the human digestive system.
However, this is where one unfortunate soul finds himself.
A 63-year-old patient in Missouri came in for a routine colonoscopy when the surprising discovery was made.
The doctors seem to be planning a colonoscopy until they reach the transverse colon in the large intestine and find a completely intact fly.
Matthew Bechtold, MD, chief of gastroenterology at the University of Missouri. The independent He and other doctors removed the fly and confirmed it was dead.
The patient was confused by the discovery and had no idea how the insect got into his body.
He told doctors that he only drank clear liquids before the procedure and had eaten pizza and salad two days before, but could not remember having a fly on the food he was eating. There was no sign that he had eaten it.
The fly twitched but did not move.
(American Journal of Gastroenterology)
The discovery, published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, represents “a very rare colonoscopy finding and the mystery of how an intact fly entered the transverse colon.”
Mr. Bechtald suggested two ways for the fly to reach its final resting place – by drinking or entering the anus, which he and other doctors are unsure about.
If the fly had entered the patient’s mouth, they would think that the upper digestive enzymes and stomach acid would have destroyed the fly. However, the fly was intact, making this hypothesis unlikely.
“If it is from the bottom, it must be created long enough for the fly to fly unnoticed into the colon and somehow get to the middle part of the colon and open it without light in the very curved large intestine.”
“However, this seems unlikely,” he added.
There have been other cases in the past where insects have remained intact throughout their digestive system, the journal said. In some cases, flies and larvae enter humans and enter the intestines, a condition known as intestinal myiasis.
Insects lay eggs on food, which is then eaten by humans and occasionally survives stomach acid and the gastrointestinal tract, according to the National Library of Medicine.
Some patients experienced diarrhoea, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting when larvae were found in their stool.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn’t track cases of intestinal myiasis, but it noted one unusual case in 1984 when a one-year-old child had “motile worms” in her stool after eating an overripe banana.
The doctors of the time did not prescribe any medicine but instead told the parents to cover their fruit from flies. After that, “moving worms” stopped appearing.