I was ready for amputation . . . then I heard about Maggot therapy

Who says maggot therapy is "yucky?" In this candid interview, see and hear what a recipient of maggot therapy says about his wound care.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• maggot
• therapy
• chronic
• wound
• amputation
• larva
• larval
• biosurgery
• biotherapy

[thisblackgirl]

thank you GOD for your wonderful and very helpful creation of maggots.

Steve.. thank you for sharing.. you really really help others. Now if I ever need this (hopefully I wont EVER) but I will remember you for sure.

God bless Always,

Dee

[cloudberry121]

About 4 years ago I saw a film on maggot therapy in the UK. It sounded fabulous. One man had a wound on his foot so foul, he needed two rounds of maggots. The first group became too mature so they were changed out with new young ones. His foot was absolutely saved and became whole again.

The maggots only like dead meat.  Live flesh isn't for them.

[Kimmirisk]

Amazing! Good for you!

[margot980]

@Furykhan When maggots successfully get big, they pupate, disappearing into a brown shell sort of thing, inside which they develop legs and wings etc., and when the conditions are right, they emerge as adult flies and buzz about looking for dead stuff and wounds they can lay eggs in.

And so on.

I once talked to an old doctor in Louisiana who said he put the eggs in a fresh wound, where the blood would otherwise have drowned the maggots. Eggs hatched when it was just right. Long ago.

[margot980]

Thank you so much for doing this.

Anyone mildly interested in this info will be delighted with the wiki entry for Maggot Therapy. Lots of good links, too. Look it up.

Maggot therapy has even successfully cured serious infections from antibiotic resistant bugs like S. aurea, so dreaded now.

The irony is that battlefield wounds used to be treated, often unsuccessfully, with ghastly chemicals that killed the naturally available maggots! William S Baer is the hero here.

[cloudberry121]

@thisblackgirl

I'm guessing what they meant by mature is they were getting too big and advanced in age where they could turn into flies.

It was amazing to see because it saves that man's foot. This is great for diabetics.

[Furykhan]

@cloudberry121 Hey what are mature maggots? Do you mean that they are adults? Too mature? What would happen if you leave the mature maggots on the wound?

[Killergrayback]

i love mother nature :)

[tonyfoth]

Steve you have been through a living hell, so glad that things are finally working out for you, I am now in a similar situation with my right foot which has been damaged by diabetes, will be having this therapy very soon, God bless you

[ziggyproductions05]

This guy sounds like Howard Stern if you just listen to him.

[BlacklitFloater]

I hate maggots, they gross me out.. but I am so glad they are beneficial to humans. I love maggots for this! Medical maggots are lovely because they eat dead tissue.

It's the screwworms that eat living tissue though that are the stuff of horror movies lol. DX Blegh.

[Mesquissto]

of course, and suffering children is perhaps the best possible way of doing that. it makes us come together to cry and it also gives the sickest of sick fucks something to laugh at

our god is so loving