DO NOT WATCH THESE VIDEOS IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH!!!

Maggots, although being EXTREMELY gross and TOTALLY irritating, can be a good thing when it comes to using them for medicine.

When maggots eat, they eat dead flesh. As the first video says, this tends to be the reason they have such a bad reputation. You wouldn’t want anything on you or near you that is there only because there’s rotting meat around.

Why are maggots good?

But, disinfected maggots have a medical use as well. The fact that maggots ONLY eat dead flesh and leave healthy flesh alone means that deploying maggots on a wound helps clear up the dead and rotting flesh, leaving your healthy tissue to grow and heal. This can help prevent further decay in a wound that does not heal properly.

The Informative yet GROSS videos

As I said at the top, do not watch these videos if you are queasy.

These videos are very short, documentary style videos showing the use of maggots in medicine.

You will see maggots put in open wounds, and you will see them crawling and eating the dead flesh.

Video 1 – Maggots cleaning a stomach wound

In this video, the maggots are placed in a stomach wound of a lady with diabetes.

If the wound is not cleaned and does not heal, there’s a chance infection could spread, ending in death!

Video 2 – Maggots cleaning a foot wound

Linda Frank of North Syracuse undergoes maggot therapy to treat a foot wound she suffered due to diabetes.

The maggots are left on for about 2 days, and then washed off. Here you can see the before and after effects of the maggots.

Video 3 – Maggots cleaning out a leg wound

Ending off with a little music, this video shows maggots being placed in a leg wound.

A little about this patient:

“Our patient Roy Rice is keen to let you all know that he was not aware of the maggots moving round at all. He was just glad that the biofilm was being removed painlessly and naturally, rather than having to endure more of the painful process of debridement manually with a sharp scraper. Thank you Roy. Today the heavens opened…”

This patient, Roy, had several traumatic leg wounds. The skin blistered and became infected. He was a US Army veteran.”

He has since passed away, peacefully in his sleep. He donated his body to medical science.