Maggots Wriggling in a Patient’s Mouth Is the Nightmare You Never Knew You Had

If you were tempted to skip flossing before bed tonight, you’ll quickly change your mind after seeing this video of a dental patient with live maggots in his or her mouth.

In a gruesome video clip, a dentist comes face to face with a mouthful of maggots. The dentist pulls the patient’s lip down to reveal the extent of the creepy crawlers wriggling in the patient’s eroded gums.

The unnamed patient can be heard breathing heavily throughout the 56-second video and is connected to some sort of tube.

The eroded gums tell an obvious story of poor oral hygiene, which is often strongly linked with oral myiasis, a rare disease caused by larvae of certain two-winged flies. While the patient in the video has no official diagnosis, it’s possible that oral myiasis has taken over his or her mouth.

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According to a study published in the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology (JOMP), oral myiasis is caused by larvae that feed on the host’s dead or living tissues, liquid body substances or ingested food. In humans, it’s most likely to occur in third-world or underdeveloped countries. Flies are attracted to the mouth due to “neglected oral hygiene or fermenting food debris.”

The larvae are brought about by the adult female fly, who lays eggs on superficial wounds, open sores and mucous membranes on orifices like the mouth, nose and ears. The eggs hatch within 24 hours and burrow into the host’s tissue head-down into the wound in a corkscrew motion. The larvae release toxins to destroy host tissue, and surrounding bacteria decomposes the tissue on which the larvae are feeding. The larvae complete their development in 5-7 days, then fall to the ground to pupate.

The study published in JOMP reports that treatment for oral myiasis includes “turpentine oil, mineral oil, chloroform, ethyl chloride or mercuric chloride followed by manual removal of the larvae” and surgery to remove the damaged tissue.

Most people without any medical complications are able to recover fully from oral myiasis, unless the type of infestation was from the Chrysomya bezziana, or the screwworm, which can cause permanent tissue damage and extremely infested wounds can even lead to death without proper treatment.

Photo Credit: LiveLeak