A story of a man from Missouri who had a fly buzzing around in his colon during a routine colon cancer screening left doctors mystified at how it got there.
While it disgusted thousands online, there have been several cases of insects creeping into colons over the years.
Cockroaches, flies and moths are just some of the insects found nestled in patients’ colons, usually after they have accidentally eaten them.
What bugs are found during a colonoscopy?
The bugs were discovered during colonoscopies – when a camera is inserted up a patient’s rectum to look for changes in the large intestine.
During a 52-year-old woman’s colorectal cancer screening in 2010, doctors found a cockroach in her large intestine.
The insect was removed and sent to the lab for identification, where it was found to be a German cockroach, a common household pest.
Was a ladybug found in a man’s colon?
The woman had a cockroach infestation in her house, and doctors thought she might have accidentally eaten the bug after it got into her food.
The cockroach’s hard outer shell is ‘probably resistant to the action of the human digestive system,’ doctors from the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, said.
Insects are most likely carried into the intestines by being accidentally eaten in contaminated food.
Another cockroach was found in the colon of a 51-year-old woman in 2010.
The bug was less than a centimeter in size and had watery green substance stuck to its legs.
Doctors tried to carefully remove the bug, but it disintegrated. It
The woman had a history of schizophrenia but could not remember accidentally eating the cockroach and denied a history of pica – a mental condition when a person compulsively swallows non-food items.
Doctors said the most plausible explanation was the patient accidentally ingested the bug while eating green lime Jell-O, which she had shortly before the procedure.
