“Freek’s Larvae: A Disturbing Tale of Discovery and Study”

When Freek discovers last April that he has brought ‘three unsolicited stowaways’ in his left leg from Costa Rica, he decides to leave them behind. The presenter says he wants to see how ‘they develop and how fast they grow’. To this day, the larvae are in his leg. It is now 55 days after ‘fertilization’ and the larvae have grown considerably.

Because they are a lot thicker and bigger, they also hurt more than before. ‘This happens at completely random times (during my sleep, in an airport, while eating, etc.) and it feels like someone is suddenly BAM sticking some hot needles in my leg! Sometimes it takes fifteen minutes before it stops, but (fortunately) it never takes longer than that,” Freek writes with a number of disgusting videos.

The biologist has decided to leave the larvae to study how they develop so that doctors can learn from this. Yet it won’t be long before the larvae leave his body, or ‘be born’ as Freek himself describes it.

For a moment it seems that the bugs have already left his leg last week, but it turns out to be a false alarm. ‘But one thing is certain, it won’t be long now, and from now on we’ll keep a close eye on it, and the larvae are under ‘house arrest’, says Freek. “Once they know what it’s like to play nice, they can come out! Hopefully only in a week’s time, when we’re back in the Netherlands!’