After one year of searching, Australian doctors finally got to the bottom of a 64-year-old woman’s cause for mental and physical distress. To everyone’s surprise, the woman, who had been suffering from night sweats and a dry cough, and who at one point was diagnosed with a rare lung infection, actually had a 3-inch red worm living in her brain.

The creature eluded detection for a couple years while the woman’s health deteriorated. Doctors found the worm when they decided to do a biopsy of a lesion in her brain. They said the woman probably became infected by accidentally ingesting the eggs of a Ophidascaris worm while gathering greens from a lake around her home.

SOURCE:

The New York Times August 30, 2023