A Colombian woman was left horrified after discovering that her innocuous-seeming rash was actually a bunch of parasites that had colonized her leg.
She detailed the skin-crawling tale in a TikTok video with over 257,000 views.
‘The doctor told me that I had a parasite,’ Marystella Gomez, 27, told Jam Press of the unfortunate infestation, which she contracted during a family getaway in the idyllic beach town of Coveñas.
Gomez and the fam had reportedly spent the weeklong jaunt lounging in the sand and frolicking in the waves — oblivious to the fact that her leg would soon become a parasite playground.
During the flight home, the beachgoer had reportedly noticed a series of small, itchy red pimple-esque spots on her leg.
‘I started scratching my leg more and more,’ said Gomez, who found it strange that the itchiness only flared up during the night.
Hoping to shed light on the nocturnal dermal disturbances, the Colombian reported to the emergency room, where doctors diagnosed her with a fungus and prescribed her medication.
Unfortunately, the drug did nothing to alleviate her symptoms and her leg only got ‘worse and worse,’ the distraught gal said.
After several fruitless doctor’s visits, Gomez finally saw the dermatologist, who revealed that it was no rash.
She reportedly had cutaneous larva migrans, an infection caused by a certain species of parasitic hookworm, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
‘The eggs of these parasites are shed in the feces of infected animals and can end up in the environment, contaminating the ground where the animal defecated,’ they write.
‘People become infected when the zoonotic hookworm larvae penetrate unprotected skin, especially when walking barefoot or sitting on contaminated soil or sand.’
Gomez believes she contracted the parasite while playing in contaminated sand during her vacation.
‘Many people take their dogs and cats to the beach and they poop,’ she said, while describing the ‘Monsters Inside Me’-esque scenario.
‘The owners don’t pick it up and then it stays in the sand and you sit or step on the sand and the parasite sticks to you.’
She added: ‘The parasite sticks by direct contact with the skin.’
Gomez eventually managed to eradicate the infestation by taking medicine prescribed by her dermatologist.
