A young Australian woman has warned travellers to Bali to be wary of an unusual insect that left her covered in bruises and blisters on a trip to the holiday island.
Emma Rose Lowry’s trip to the resort town of Kuta turned nasty when she had an unwelcome encounter with what turned out to be a type of beetle.
After doctors and pharmacists were unable to identify what was wrong when she got back home, it was finding a previous Daily Mail Australia story that helped her solve the mystery herself.
‘I got walked over by a beetle at dinner one night in Kuta by a “tomcat” rove beetle,’ she said. ‘This beetle is small and looks like a bull ant but is very venomous.’
Ms Lowry, 28, said she later noticed a 5cm long blister on her leg, but couldn’t figure out what it was.
Emma Rose Lowry’s trip to the resort town of Kuta turned nasty when she had an unwelcome encounter with what turned out to be a type of beetle. She is pictured with her partner, Jordan Glennie
The Victorian posted on Facebook that she wanted to ‘warn any Bali travellers to be careful of what many people, GPs and pharmacists haven’t heard of’. The scars on her legs are pictured
‘The next day It burst and I noticed more redness around it,’ she said.
Rove beetles are common in moist habitats such as crops, riverbanks and marshes, which explains why they’re prominent in Balinese rice paddies.
And then things got even worse on the holiday she was having with her partner Jordan Glennie.
‘By the third day I was noticing bruising but now (it had) turned into scarring,’ she said.
The illness left her at times hot, then cold, with aches and pains and her lymph nodes up.
But she said she was luckier than others who suffer as a result of tomcat beetles, ‘as some people squish them which then causes them to release more toxin’.
‘Once the blister burst, it really started to spread. The scarring is still horrific. It’s going to take weeks to heal and I may need to have scar treatment,’ Ms Lowry told Daily Mail Australia.
‘But a lot of other people suffer from vomiting, a really serious reaction. I didn’t have that. I’ve been a bit lethargic, but not too bad,’ she said.
Ms Lowry is now back in Australia and on the road to recovery.
‘I have had antibiotics and will be fine however I just wanted to post this so that people are aware of these little buggers,’ she said.
Ms Lowry said she ‘got walked over by a beetle at dinner one night in Kuta by a “tomcat” rove beetle’
She was affected by the toxin carried by a tomcat rove beetle, which is pictured
Ms Lowry, pictured with her friend Jessica, doesn’t want her experience to put people off going to Bali, she just wants them to be aware of tomcat beetles
‘It’s not a tattoo I wanted to come home from Bali with,’ she added referring to the fact that many people get a tattoo on their trip there.
‘But also… It would only ever happen to me,’ she joked.
She wants to make it clear that she is just warning people to be careful and is not saying people should avoid Bali, where she said they ‘had the best time’.
‘People can help protect themselves from tomcat beetles by doing things such as tapping chairs before you sit down or sitting on a towel,’ Ms Lowry said.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
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