Canadian comedian Howie Mandel has opened up about a rare skin condition he had during childhood that left him with bugs living under his skin.
A tiny biting fly laid larvae there when he was six or seven years old.
“When I had these itchy little bumps and you scratch them and then you watch that itchy little bump crawl away under your arm to another place. I mean, it’s like a horror film," the 70-year-old America’s Got Talent judge recalled in a recent appearance on the "In Depth With Graham Bensinger" podcast. “That you are the horror film.”
And the experience − including being presented by a doctor at a dermatology convention in his hometown of Toronto − added to his heightened "ick factor.”
“They hadn’t seen this in humans, I think. Cattle get it. And they put me on a table, in my Tighty Whities ... and the nurses would hold me down and then they would show them these bumps and then the bump would move. And then, they would take liquid nitrogen and put it on the bump and liquid nitrogen is so cold it burns,” the former Deal or No Deal host continued.
“And I’d watch my skin sizzle and bubble and then it would open up and obviously kill the larvae and then I was screaming,” Mandel recalled. “They did one.”
His mother then took Mandel out of the facility. Later, she would rub the affected areas with a wash cloth and alcohol until the skin opened up to get them out.
“It’s traumatizing,” Mandel told Bensinger. “I had things living under my skin.”
Mandel identified his insect assailant as a sand fly. One other possible culprit, identified by commenters online, could be a bot fly.
Sand flies typically only bite and can spread a parasitic disease that way, whereas bot flies lay their eggs on mosquitoes, ticks or houseflies, which then pass the eggs to the skin and burrowing larvae grow.
And sand fleas may burrow into the skin to lay eggs, but the eggs fall out of the opening in your skin, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Fly larvae that develop in human tissue is a rare condition known as myiasis that’s more common in subtropical climates.
It’s not often seen in the U.S., but people may be exposed when flies drop their eggs near a person’s wound, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“People infected with myiasis will develop a lump in their tissue as the larva grows. Larvae under the skin may move, but usually remain under the skin and do not travel throughout the body,” the agency explains.
Doctors will typically remove these larvae through surgery, leaving wounds that need daily care.
The best way to protect yourself is to wear loose-fitting and long-sleeved shirts and pants, cover open wounds with bandages, use EPA-registered insect repellent, treat clothing and gear with products containing 0.5 percent permethrin, like you do for ticks.
The circumstances surrounding Mandel’s health are unclear.
He has long been open about his struggles with germaphobia tied to his obsessive compulsive disorder and his mother’s own germaphobia.
He wrote a book in 2009 titled, Here's the Deal: Don't Touch Me.
"I'm always on the verge of death in my head," he told "20/20” then.
