A couple from Canada took a vacation to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic had a horrifying experience – parasitic hookworms in their feet.
Katie Stephens and Eddie Zytner took a week to sun at the IFA Villas Bavaro Resort in early January. Upon their return home, they noticed that their feet were unusually itchy, New York Daily News reports.
They initially dismissed the symptom as bug bites. Zytner, 25, said,
For a lot of our trip, we found that we were scratching our feet quite a bit. Sand fleas we had heard about so we kind of assumed it was that at first.
But on January 19, Zytner was surprised to see that his feet had begun to swell. By the weekend, the swelling had gotten worse, and there were small bumps on his toes. He went to the hospital, where two doctors were completely mystified over his condition. He was sent home with his feet in bandages and no diagnosis.
By Sunday, Stephens’ feet had also started to swell. Stephens, 22, said, “I had a lot of itchiness during the trip. I think I might have complained about it a little bit more that my feet were itchy, but mine didn’t start swelling and everything until about the Sunday night.”
The couple went to the hospital again just four days after flying home, and got a positive diagnosis. The doctor attending them said that he had recently treated a similar case involving a tourist who had returned from a trip to Thailand.
Stephens and Zytner had contracted larva migrans, also known as hookworms – parasites that enter the skin when they come in contact with an infected area. The pair believe that they got the parasites while walking barefoot on the beach in Punta Cana.
The doctor prescribed Ivermectin, which had to be specially requested for at Health Canada, as the medication is not licensed in the country.
The couple expected to receive the medicine, but were denied. “We found out that Health Canada had denied our request to receive the medication saying our case wasn’t severe enough. At that point, that’s when we freaked out a little,” Stephens said.
Zytner’s mother drove down to Detroit to purchase the medication, which the pair took for two days.
Stephens and Zytner are warning other tourists planning to spend their holidays in warm climates to take extra precautions, and have emphasized that the infection had nothing to do with the resort or the country they stayed in.
