- As soon as the eggs hatch, the little baby maggots are packed into small sealed bags to be sent all over the UK and beyond, for doctors and nurses to apply onto wounds.
- The maggots used to help heal wounds, are Welsh! They are specially reared under strict, clean conditions in laboratories in Bridgend, South Wales.
- The baby maggots are clinically excellent, they will clear away the dead and infected tissue within a few days!
- After the maggots have done their job, the bag is then removed from the wound
- Maggots have saved countless limbs from amputation!.
- The use of maggots on wounds dates back centuries to biblical times, and traverses numerous ancient tribes and cultures, including the Central American Mayan Indians and the Aborigines of New South Wales.
What does the science tell us?
The results of independent clinical trials involving 100’s of patients who were given maggot therapy, shows that maggots work really well and are actually MORE effective than other control treatments, in removing dead and infected wound debris.
In the last decade, scientists from all over the world have been busy in their laboratories investigating exactly WHAT maggots do in a wound – and HOW they actually do it!
Our own laboratory research findings at Swansea University have discovered that maggots are actually very clever little creatures, who can produce their own anti-bacterial agents, that are secreted into the wound, helping to kill off the dangerous and troublesome microbes that may be lurking there. Our research is even exploring whether one of these agents in maggot secretions may become a new and marvellous antibiotic in the future, for us to use to treat other infections, not just wounds!
In addition, our research has found that maggots may be able to help other good wound cells to come together, cells that are really key to wound healing, for example fibroblasts, cells that can make new healthy tissue for the healing wound or blood vessel cells, which can make tiny new blood vessels so that the newly formed tissue can be fed.
Maggots help all these things happen! So we think Maggot therapy is amazing!