Flesh Eating Bugs in Republic of Panama


Flesh Eating Bugs in Republic of Panama

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Written by Matt Landau

Tuesday, September 30 2008

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Keenan noticed a red bug bite on his leg back last August, which then developed into a small crater-sized wound inhabited by microscopic flesh-eating sand flies. Several more of these holes began to appear and it was not until Keenan began to lose sensation in the lower body that he made a doctor's appointment to have it checked out.

As young Americans, people like Keenan and I take pride in our ability to self-diagnose and self-treat just about any medical symptom using tweezers, forceps, or any cool instrument that happens to be lying around. Some might attribute it to pride or egotism, but at the heart of the matter lies a simple masculine urge to fix things ourselves: the same urge has brought men such iconic playgrounds as the car repair shop and the tool shed-every problem has a solution and it is our purpose on earth to find that solution without the help of anyone else.

Throughout my childhood, injuries and diseases were pretty much limited to the pages of the textbook. Science was not yet at the point of cloning sheep or regenerating limbs, making life in general seem extremely boring compared to now. Symptoms were categorically lumped into vague and nonspecific groups, which left little room for disputes or disagreements. Soar throat? Stomach ache? Welts on your hands the size of golf balls? Pipe down and take a Benedryl.

As I grew older my faith in doctors weakened, particularly when my friend Crystal told me about her visit to the pediatrician's office before which her allergist requested she pick up several pounds of seafood.

"So let me get this straight," I clarified. "He told you to bring boiled lobsters, clams, and shrimp to his office? What medical school did you say he graduated from again?"

The request was an effort by Crystal's doctor to determine her reactions to specific shellfish species, but the notion seemed horribly outdated to me. It was not unlike, I imagined, the way experiments on decapitation were executed back in the early 1800s, with some unlucky fool playing the role of guinea pig. "Hey Lazarus," they might say, "bring an axe to the town square tomorrow morning, will ya?"

I imagined Crystal eating the lobster while under the doctor's watchful surveillance then going into a fit of serious allergic convulsions. "And guess what?" he'd say in a discovery-like fashion while jotting down some notes. "You, my friend, are allergic to lobster." This was not something that we couldn't have done at home which was what really pissed me off and when he asked her to leave the remainder of the uneaten seafood in his office "for examination purposes" I had to draw the line.

"Just what kind of doctor are you?" I wanted to ask him. "A hungry doctor? Are you a hungry doctor?"

When Keenan had his infected legs examined by a doctor at the local clinic in Panama, the bloodied and mucus-filled holes were diagnosed as ingrown hairs. Not believing this verdict, Keenan went back to the USA where doctors sat perplexed at the sight of his legs as if they were looking at small space creatures. Finally, after diligent research on his own, Keenan identified the infection as Leishmaniasis, a tropical illness which was known only by military specialists at Water Reed Hospital in Washington DC, seeing as though soldiers got it back during US occupation of the tropics.

Keenan read the definition of the disease to me over the phone, which was an act akin to watching a live lobotomy. "Found in any of the varying regions of Panama, a sand fly will bite the victim and deposit his eggs under the skin. Eggs which will then hatch..." I made him stop before loosening my collar and clearing my throat of some vomit. "Eggs which will then hatch anywhere from three months to two years later and begin feasting on the flesh of their host ceaselessly until they ultimately hit bone."

I couldn't see it per say, but on my end of the phone I visualized a magnified image of Keenan's leg showing a team of little mites burrowed away beneath the skin, drinking beer, listening to music, and having a grand old time. "I must have got it in Los Santos while camping," he said, one of the possible provinces Leishmaniasis can be found. "Or...was it San Blas?"

The following weeks were spent trying to recount every Central American province Keenan had visited in the past two years, as well as each individual bug bite he encountered therein. It's one of the several tropical diseases in Panama that doctors simply don't know too much about (neither here nor abroad), in the same boat as Dengue which requires weeks and weeks of ambiguous injections in the ass and the ongoing sensation that you very well might die before lunch rolls around.

These kinds of tropical diseases in Panama are hard to avoid. While they're not by any means commonplace, there is the unsettling fact that they can be passed on anytime and anywhere by a simple bug bite. Certain regional hotbeds demonstrate their love for these diseases in the form of roadside meters which show, not unlike a lottery ticker or fund raising gauge, the risk level you are about to subject yourself to. It's a step back in medical time when symptoms were new, reactions were unexpected, and final conclusions were largely unidentifiable.

In the end, Keenan's wounds began to heal magically on their own, mysteriously disappearing (after about six months) nearly as fast as they arrived in the first place. Who knows if there are still little mites living inside of him partying it up. It was a case that no one was able to put a finger on, not even the specialists who, despite their expertise in the field of tropical diseases, could suggest only that the next time he was about to get bit, Keenan may want to capture one of the bugs in a little plastic bag and bring it into the lab for testing.

Disgusting Image Courtesy of http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/12/Leishmaniasis.jpg/350px-Leishmaniasis.jpg

Comments (3)

Javier: ...

I think you should have included that we have in Panama one of the finest Research institutions on tropical diseases, the Gorgas Institute. Hailing from the beginnings of the construction of the Panama Canal, it has an astounding record on research of tropical diseases. Much of what is known today about leishmaniasis, malaria, etc. was discovered by the scientists at the Gorgas Institute

September 30, 2008

Mona: I just lost my lunch...

Wow...That's REALLY REALLY disgusting! smilies/shocked.gif

October 11, 2008

Mary Roush: Other insect "Issues"

So you should write a column about the friggin' ticks. In the U.S., ticks were confined to wooded areas, e.g. in PA, where you'd simply wear long socks and pick over yourself after hiking to avoid contracting Lyme Disease. HERE, ticks are "everywhere". (OK, the fact that the streets are populated by feral cats and "street dogs" doesn't help the situation.)

They crawl up your walls towards the ceiling, they jump on your sheets, they snuggle down inside your pajamas and clothing, etc. Despite the fact that we regularly fumigate, they are a constant presence (worst from July - Sept.) Every day we go on "tick safari"...picking up the hard-shelled little critters and popping them on our tile countertop. It's our tropical version of popping bubble wrap...only they are alive and blood-sucking (YECH!)

October 18, 2008

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