Itchy lump on woman’s face is actually parasitic worm CRAWLING under her skin
Ten days after she first noticed it the worm had crawled all the way down into her lip, causing it to swell up
A BIZARRE lump that appeared on a woman's face was actually a parasitic worm crawling under her skin.
The Russian woman first noticed the lump under her left eye but in a few days it had moved.
The woman tracked the small lump taking selfies every time it moved.
Her first picture shows it just below her left eye, but five days later the worm had crawled to above her eye.
Ten days after the first noticed it the worm had crawled all the way down into her lip, causing it to swell up.
The 32-year-old then went to see an eye doctor who noticed the lump was moving around the upper left eyelid, according to the report in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Tests confirmed the woman was infected with a parasitic worm that naturally infects dogs, cats, foxes and other wild mammals.
Apart from occasional itching and burning the worm caused no other symptoms.
But humans can become accidental hosts of the thread-like worm - meaning the worm doesn't intend to infect a human.
Once under a human's skin the worm, which is spread by mosquito bites, cannot breed.
The woman reported she had recently travelled to a rural area in Moscow where she was frequently bitten by mosquitoes.
The worm was surgically removed using special forceps and the woman made a full recovery.
It is not the first case like this reported in Europe.
According to a 215 study by Dr Vladimir Kartashev, a professor of medicine at the Rostov State Medical University in Rostov-na-Donu, Russia, there were 1,272 cases of between January 1997 and June 2013.
They increased from eight in 1997 to nearly 200 cases in 2012.
In humans the worms cause a lump under the skin that occasionally move around.
Some patients reportedly feel a crawling sensation under the skin.
The worm rarely poses any dangers and patients make a full recovery once it has been removed.
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