BUG bites and stinging insects are some of the downsides of the summer months.
For most of us, using insect repellent can help keep the critters at bay and when they do strike, it’s usually no worse than an annoying, itchy spot which is easily resolved with over the counter antihistamine tablets or creams.
But for an unlucky few, bites and can turn nasty leading to hospitalisation or even death.
Last week an inquest heard how 21-year-old trainee pilot Oriana Pepper, from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, died after a mosquito bite on her forehead led to an infection which spread to her brain.
Dad-of-three Jack Holmes also knows the agony of biting insects as he TWICE ended up in hospital when his face swelled so badly he feared he wouldn’t be able to breathe.
Jack, 30, told Sun Health how he thought at first the wound on his head was just an innocent spot.
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But he explained how within a couple of days it left him looking like he’d lost a fight with heavyweight Mike Tyson.
Jack said: “It was a bit of a joke at first – we all had a laugh about it at work because I looked like I’d done ten rounds in the ring.
“But I wasn’t laughing when I ended up in hospital. There was a creature living in my head – it was like something out of Alien vs Predator.”
Jack, from Stoke, woke with what he thought was a plain old spot last month.
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He went to work in his logistics job at an engineering firm and let wife Hannah tackle the pimple on his return.
“The missus wanted to have a squeeze so I said, ‘Fire away’.
“Nothing came out but the pain after she’d had a go – I felt like I’d been punched in the head by Mike Tyson.”
Jack returned to work the next day by which time his ‘spot’ had ballooned to the size of a golf ball.
Taking advice from the NHS 111 emergency phone line, he tried antihistamines, but by the end of the day his right eye had started to swell.
“The next morning I woke up looking like Sloth from The Goonies,” he said.
“I got a video appointment with a GP and was prescribed antibiotics, but by the end of the day I couldn’t see out of my right eye at all.
“The following morning both eyes were swollen shut and I had to call in sick so the missus could take me to hospital.”
Jack tried to prise one eye open but says the pressure in his head burst his spot – leading to a horrifying discovery.
“It went off with a ‘pop’,” he said. “Some pus came out followed by what looked like a black, decaying egg sac and a larva.
"It was wriggling on the antiseptic wipe – absolutely gross.”
He was prescribed more antihistamines but made a panic-stricken return to hospital the following day.
“The top of my mouth began swelling up and I was worrying I wasn’t going to be able to breathe.
“I went to A&E at the Royal Stoke Hospital. They were planning to keep me in overnight, but in the end I was sent home after about six hours with a different set of antibiotics.
“The next day I woke up feeling right as rain, as though nothing had happened. It was like night and day.”
Jack said he is still clueless as to what bit or stung him.
“Some people have suggested a horsefly,” he said.
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“The doctor explained that whatever it was probably injected me with a toxin to kill the flesh around the wound so this thing could burrow inside my head.
“I’d love to know what it was.”
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