This brings bizarre new meaning to the term “ballroom dancing.”
A 26-year-old man in India revolted the internet after it was revealed that his swollen right testicle was caused by microscopic worms that had infiltrated his scrotum.
Footage of the parasites “dancing” in the man’s private part is currently going viral online.
“On ultrasound examination (shown in a video), moving structures were seen within a dilated lymphatic channel [thin tubes that transport fluid and white blood cells in the scrotum],” doctors wrote in the case study of the incident, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine‘s latest issue.
The case study reported to the Max Super Specialty Hospital in New Delhi after experiencing “pain and swelling in the scrotum and low-grade fevers” for a month, per the study.
“On examination, there was tenderness and swelling of the right side of the scrotum,” study authors wrote. Subsequent ultrasound scans revealed that the Delhi native had tiny dancers boogying about in his nether region, as seen in the family jewel footage.
Doctors diagnosed him with lymphatic filariasis, commonly known as elephantiasis, “a neglected tropical disease” that occurs when a mosquito bite infects the patient’s system with a species of microscopic roundworm, according to the World Health Organization. These tiny nematodes cause fluid to block off the lymphatic system, paradoxically causing the scrotum and other body parts to balloon up to pachyderm-esque proportions, hence its nickname.
The aforementioned display was known as “filarial dance sign,” caused by the “undulations of live worms that have migrated into lymphatic channels, causing dilation and dysfunction,” per the study.
The patient was lucky the doctors discovered his testicular infiltrators early. Generally acquired in childhood, elephantiasis symptoms manifest later in life, and often result in permanent disabilities.
Thankfully, doctors were able to evict the man’s scrotal squatters with a three-week regimen of an anti-parasitic drug. When the patient returned, the worms had disappeared completely.
In a much more serious elephantiasis case in 2018, doctors in India removed a whopping 30-pound lump from the leg of a man suffering from the affliction.