Medical Session 7_8_09

This week with Medical Mary and Doctor Luis I had the pleasure of learning about all of the fun skin problems I might run into from boils to bot flies.

Bot Flies:
I’ve heard of bot flies before and they creep me the hell out more than anything I’ve ever encountered. Ugg my skin is crawling just thinking about them. Basically the fly larva burrows into your skin and begins to grow. Initially the spot looks like a mosquito bite except there is a small hole in the center of the bite that the larva needs to breath. To kill the fly all you have to do is cover the breathing hole with something like Vaseline. Sometimes you can also push the larva out like popping a zit. Another technique is to put a piece of raw meat over the bite in the hopes that the larva will crawl out of your skin and into the meat. However, evidently the larva do not like it if you cover their air hole, they will probably start to sting you and it is possible to feel them moving around. If the larva does die for whatever reason and you can’t get it out, your body will either absorb it or the wound will get infected and the larva will have to be removed by Doctor Luis. Evidently Dr. Luis takes great pleasure in this particular surgery because he has the biggest grin, and a glint in his eye when Mary started talking about it.

Fleas:
There are also a type of flea that burrow into your skin, usually the feet, and lay eggs. 2 people in the RED group have already gotten them. The flea itself just looks like a little black dot that itches. The eggs are little white clusters that also itch. Fortunately removing them is easy. You can dig them out like a splinter with a needle.

They also warned us again bed bugs, athletes’ foot, jock itch, boils, and these bugs that live in the walls of non-brick homes that cause a disease called Changas.

Ahh the wonderful rewards of being a volunteer.