“I have been infested with insects going on three years,” states this reader in his query. He thinks that he is infected with “toilet flies” that have come from drinking water.

Before we lay out the context of our reader’s situation, we must preface this article by saying that we will unfortunately not be able to answer our reader’s questions or give any direct advice as to what he should do in this situation. This is because our reader tells us that he is taking medication for this infestation, which makes it clear to us that this is a medical situation. Since we are not medical professionals, we are not qualified to provide any medical advice or identify organisms that affect one’s health, as doing so would be tantamount to providing a diagnosis.

With that said, our reader thinks that he drank water which was infected with flies and eggs, and he has been drinking this infected water for over four months. In fact, he states that he may still be ingesting them, as his water supply has not yet been tested. He does not include any pictures with his submission, but he reports having photos of insects coming out of his skin, and tubes being ejected from his skin that are filled with insects. Unfortunately, he has not sent us any of these photos.

He asks us if we can get him pictures of the “micro stages” of “toilet flies” so that he can compare them to the slides he has made. Not only are we not qualified to help in this way, but we are also not sure what he means by “toilet flies.” Our first instinct was that he is referring to drain flies, but this cannot be, seeing as they are not parasitic.

Moving on, our reader has seen his primary care doctor, who does not think that our reader needs to consult a bug specialist, even though “everyone else does.” Because of this, “a lot of doubt” has been “shed” on him. He is currently taking pimozide for treatment, but as it “is normally a mental health drug”, he is unsure as to whether or not it is doing him any good. He fears further complications because of his diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (a lung condition), and he wonders if this diagnosis might be connected to this worm infection. “This is truly a life or death situation,” he finishes his submission with.

So, what we can recommend is that our reader do one or more of the following:
1) Search for a medical parasitologist in Portland, Oregon using this directory of medical parasitology consultants: https://www.astmh.org/for-astmh-members/clinical-consultants-directory.
2) Search for a local parasitologist by doing a Google search for “medical parasitologist Portland, Oregon” or “tropical medicine specialist Portland, Oregon”.
3) Get in touch with Dr. Omar Amin at the Parasitology Center at https://www.parasitetesting.com.

We advise consulting a medical parasitologist, rather than a primary care doctor or a bug specialist, as they are qualified and well-equipped to diagnose and treat conditions caused by organisms.

To conclude, we wish we could help our reader more with this situation, but alas, we are not medical professionals. His situation is better off in the hands of a medical parasitologist, and we hope that the resources listed above come to use. We wish him the very best!

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