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05-02-2009, 01:12 PM | #31 (permalink) | |
Juicious Maximus III
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Scabb Island
Posts: 6,525
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Are you crazy? Thanks for teaching me stuff about the remora fish .. I've always wondered about those little suckers!
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Thanks to Bulldog for the bot-fly post and also thanks to [paranoid.android] and Vanilla for icky pictures! The little worm in the eye looks a bit like a nematode worm which is what the next parasite also is. Wuchereria bancrofti is one of more parasites that has a life stage that can live in people's lymphatic system, the body's conduit network where lymph sloshes about. The other stage is in mosquitos, so mosquito bites is how you get them. Wuchereria bancrofti looks perhaps relatively harmless and one probably wouldn't cause so much damage. However, when they become many, they clog up your lymphatic system which causes lymph to accumulate in those areas and your body starts swelling up (other factors such as immune responses might also add to the swelling). This swell condition (pun) is called elephantitis and the swelling usually takes place in the arms, legs or the scrotum. As you can probably imagine, these swollen parts are full of little worms just enjoying life in the lymph. Having elephantitis might not kill you, but it can severly disable you or even make you really ugly. I would not want to travel to a place where there's a chance of getting these little suckers!
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05-02-2009, 01:48 PM | #32 (permalink) | |
gun whales
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Knoxville/Nashville, TN, USA, NA, E, S, LC, MW, Known Universe
Posts: 1,713
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My mom treats lymphema from time to time. She works as a massage therapist at a hospital. Hasn't had it that bad yet, though.
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05-03-2009, 08:47 PM | #35 (permalink) |
Unrepentant Ass-Mod
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Pennsylvania
Posts: 3,921
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well it's also a function of the body's immune reaction to it. there is no specific worm which causes elephantiasis (there's about twenty that can), each elicits different reactions in the body.
it's also interesting to know that the disease that plagued Joseph Merrick (the "Elephant Man" for which elephantiasis was named) was NOT elephantiasis but actually a much rarer congenital defect called Protean syndrome (of which there have been possibly 200 cases worldwide).
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05-03-2009, 08:53 PM | #36 (permalink) | |
Music Addict
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 1,711
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Has this become the new diseases thread? |
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05-04-2009, 12:44 AM | #40 (permalink) |
Partying on the inside
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 5,584
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Yea, I saw some kind of documentary about him. It's some abnormality that causes warts to grow uncontrollably. I forget the details, but after years and years of not doing anything about it, it got that bad.
Supposedly he's getting treatment and getting all that surgically removed.
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