PK Krishnamurthy, an Indian man from a small section of north-eastern Mumbai known as Mulund, had the unfortunate experience of becoming one of India’s rarest medical oddites.
Mr. Krishnamurthy, at 75, thought he had seen it all, but it turns out the one things he hadn’t seen yet was, quite literally, right in his own eye the whole time!
And, if that wasn’t all good and fun as it is, the worm that turned up in this man’s eyeball is actually a sign of a bigger problem, due to the little fact it had come all the way from his intestines!
Yup, it managed to wiggle from one end of this man to the other!
The Mumbai Mirror writes:
For two weeks, Mulund resident P K Krishnamurthy, 75, felt his right eye twitching and even hurting at times. On Wednesday, doctors pulled out a 13-cm live worm from his eye, in one of the city’s rarest medical instances. While we have all dealt with worms – both within our bodies and outside – Krishnamurthy’s case is a medical nightmare come true.
The parasite – which had taken residence under conjunctiva (the transparent layer that covers the front of the eye) – had travelled all the way from Krishnamurthy’s intestine, through the blood stream, to reach the eye. Its journey stunned doctors, who said that they had not heard of a precedent. “We haven’t come across such long worms travelling so far,” said eye surgeon Dr V Seetharaman, who operated upon Krishnamurthy at Fortis Hospital, Mulund.
Doctors at JJ Hospital, one of the city’s largest medical facilities, said that they had encountered only one such instance in the past 20 years, but the crawly culprit in the case was only 2 to 3 cm long. Krishnamurthy started feeling irritation in his left eye two weeks ago. He consulted an ophthalmologist, who prescribed him eye drops. The twitching and pain, however, didn’t subside. On Wednesday morning, the 75-year-old consulted Dr Seetharaman. “I was shocked when the doctor told me that there was a live worm in my left eye and that I needed to undergo a surgery,” Krishnamurthy told Mumbai Mirror just hours after the surgery.
Dr Seetharaman said that the worm was not only alive, but moving, and was visible by naked eye. “It was coiled up underneath the conjunctiva, below the superficial layer of the eye,” he said. “There have been cases, though very rare, of intestinal worms travelling to the eye. But never a worm as long as this one.”
Read more at mumbaimirror.com