In honor of {Throw Back Thursday}, every Thursday I will be posting a post from our blog The Hutcheson Headline
that we used while living in Uganda from 2012-2013. The post below was
originally published by me on November 25, 2012 . You can view it here if you'd like to see the original version
A few days ago I noticed several red bumps on Isaiah's back. My first
thought was chicken pox but they weren't spreading and they weren't in
the "warm" areas of his body. They were covering mainly just his back
with a few on his arms. We figured they must be some kind of spider bite
and put cortisone on them.
Friday night, after Zai's bath, I noticed that several of the "bites"
had white heads forming on them and I thought they must have puss inside
them. However, when I squeezed one open it wasn't puss that came
out....it was a WORM! Yup. A mango worm.
The mango worm goes by many names. It is technically a fly larva and it
also goes by the names mango fly, putzi fly and tumbu fly depending on
where you are. It is found throughout tropical areas of sub-Saharan
Africa, but is more common in certain regions (Central Africa, for
example).
The worm works like this:
1. Adult female worm lays a few hundred eggs into the soil OR onto some damp clothing that is hanging out to dry.
2. The larvae hatch and look for a host. Dogs work well. Unfortunately,
so do humans (although, they are not commonly found as hosts compared to
other animals).
3. The larvae penetrate the skin of the host and take up residence under the skin.
4. Then they grow and fatten up.
5. After 8-12 days, a boil will have formed.
6. It will itch and then get increasingly painful before it…
7.
actually opens up so the worm can come out to play.
8. The worm then falls to the ground where it buries itself in order to
go into its final stage of growth before turning into a fly.
Sounds gross, right? Just imagine popping these things out of your son's back!!
After the first one came out (and I screamed for help and my mom, dad,
and Drew all came running!) we decided to try and get the rest out. The
best method of removing a mango worm is by suffocating them. You put
vaseline and a band aid over the wound and the worm can't breathe so it
comes up to the surface for air. So, we covered Isaiah's back with
vaseline and band aids and waited.
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| A patient boy waiting while we applied the vaseline. |
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| You can't see them all but he had 8! |
After about an hour we came back to pop all the worms out. They were
definitely near the surface and most popped out pretty easily. We
counted 8 worms. Most on his back, one on his arm, and one on his
forehead!
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| The worm on it's way out after we had squeezed it! |
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| And...it's finally out. |
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| Happy boy who thought it was so cool he had bugs living inside him. |
Isaiah is a brave little man. He hardly cried and didn't complain (even
though we've heard the itching while the worm is making it's way to the
surface for air is almost unbearable). Actually he thought it was kind
of cool that there were "bugs" on his back. What a boy.
Our house girl irons all of our clothes for the specific reason of
killing mango worms but somehow a piece of clothing got missed or Isaiah
picked it up some other way. Either way we are hoping we are not going
to find any new bumps and that his fun experience with mango worms is
over for now. =)
