Monsters Inside Me
Part horror movie, part medical detective story, find out what happens when people fall prey to an infection from a parasite, those nasty microscopic creatures found in water, soil and even in the air. Victims' stories are retold, including how doctors and scientists attempt to unravel each case before it's too late. Biologist Dan Riskin, assisted by doctors and experts who witnessed each case, leads the scientific discussion about each parasite.
Seasons
1. Suicide Attackers
Air Date: 2010-06-09
A fit and active dance instructor is suddenly stopped in her tracks by unbearable abdominal pain and vomiting, and a mysterious mass in her colon is revealed to have decaying worms. A middle-aged banker gets seizures from a parasite he picked up from traveling to his home country, Haiti. A scientist finds worms from Africa that threaten to damage his sight living in his skin and eyes.
2. Feeding Frenzy
Air Date: 2010-06-16
A schoolteacher deals with an amoeba that eats at his liver and causes him high fever, abdominal pain, sweating, and chills. A young dancer gets worms from eating contaminated pork in her muscle tissue, causing her to get hives all over her body and her limbs to become stiff and painful. A retiree gets scabies from mites he got from staying in the hospital in the past.
3. Cold Blooded Killers
Air Date: 2010-06-23
A nine-year-old hockey player comes down with encephalitis from the Acanthamoeba, which causes him to lose his concentration and balance, almost killing him. A computer programmer gets severe malaria from the Plasmodium parasite that makes him lose control of his mind and post-malarial neurological symptoms two weeks after an apparent recovery. A marathon runner deals with Leishmaniasis, which causes his spleen to swell.
4. Lurkers
Air Date: 2010-07-07
The Crytosporidium parasite infects a little girl, causing her severe vomiting and diarrhea. A microscopic amoeba kills a firefighter with an autoimmune disorder by causing him meningitis. A rare, vicious tapeworm detaches the retina in a teenaged girl, destroying vision in her left eye.
5. Flesh Eaters
Air Date: 2010-07-14
A cat scratch leads to a horrifying result for a veterinary volunteer; strange liquid oozes from a college student's arm.
6. Stowaways
Air Date: 2010-07-28
Stories of parasites that reside inside their traveling hosts; an Iraq war veteran pulls a foot-long worm from his body.
7. Breeders
Air Date: 2010-08-04
Daily stomach cramps reveal some of the most common parasites in nature.
8. Double Agents
Air Date: 2010-08-11
A man tries hookworms to cure his allergies; a bloodsuckers gets into a writer's nose.
9. Homegrown Enemies
Air Date: 2010-08-18
A middle-aged man who has been caring for his ailing mother gets Babesiosis from walking barefoot to the mailbox. Since he lost his spleen from cancer, he gets severe diarrhea, in addition to fever, fatigue, and night sweats. An active, busy middle-aged woman experiences stomach cramps, explosive diarrhea, lightheadedness, and blurred vision from the Toxocara parasite, which she probably got from contaminated food. An older mother of five children deals with nausea, loss of appetite, muscle spasms, and vomiting from the Strongyloides worm, which she may have picked up from being in contact with infected soil. Because of steroids she took for her breathing problems, her body became more vulnerable to the parasite.
10. Shape Shifters
Air Date: 2010-08-25
A seven-year-old girl suffers from seizures from a pork tapeworm after being adopted at the age of three from Nepal. A forty-five-year-old machinist deals with blurry and double vision, leaving him legally blind in his left eye, from a raccoon roundworm that he picked up from his turkey hunting. A forty-one-year-old anaethesiologists, along with twenty-eight other anaethesiologists from two different counties, suffer from stomach cramps and crippling diarrhea from the Cyclospora parasite after eating raspberries infected with human feces.
1. The Flesh-Eating Monster
Air Date: 2013-09-30
A 7-year-old girl contracts the bubonic plague and suffers a 107 fever, vomiting, painful buboes, and seizures; a yoga instructor finds out that what she thought was influenza is actually necrotizing fasciitis caused by Streptococcus intermedius and Peptostreptococcus; a state wrestling champion contracts angiostrongyliasis.
2. There's a Worm in My Eye
Air Date: 2013-10-07
A teenage ballerina suffers from painful migraines and muscle failures; a young missionary's skin crawls when he uncovers an unholy revelation.
3. Choosing Between Life and Limb
Air Date: 2013-10-11
A newly engaged Illinois man mysteriously collapses and suffers organ failure and gangrene from Legionnaire's disease. His fiance gazes in horror as he must choose between life and limb; a perky animal-loving eight-year-old girl survives rabies – a disease with a 99% fatality rate; a college freshmen almost goes blind from a bout of Acanthamoeba keratitis.
4. It Came From a Tick...
Air Date: 2013-10-18
A mother suffers with abdominal pain and nausea for four years until the true cause of her condition is discovered; a 2-year-old girl develops a mysterious lump on her neck.
5. My Husband is Hallucinating
Air Date: 2013-10-25
A small-town boy's summer fun is cut short by a life-threatening Neisseria meningitidis infection. An oil rig worker and daredevil experiences sensitivity to light, muscle pain and horrifying hallucinations from Trichinella spiralis after eating bear meat. A former beauty queen suffers an extreme case of asthma for one year from a nasal packing contaminated with Aspergillus niger fungi.
6. Dying Abroad
Air Date: 2013-12-11
A Peace Corps volunteer traveling to Burkina Faso suddenly suffers from excruciating bouts of nausea and diarrhea from Entamoeba histolytica, and must find medical help before it is too late; a young woman almost suffocates due to hantavirus pulmonary syndrome she got from breathing dust while cleaning up contaminated with mouse feces; an 18-month-old boy gets infected with Baylisascaris procyonis worms which cause his brain to swell and have neurological damage, eye fluttering, and unresponsiveness.
7. Maggots Are Eating Me Alive
Air Date: 2013-12-11
A teenager caught in the 2011 Joplin tornado in Missouri is recovering in the hospital when he suddenly suffers from a life-threatening case of zygomycosis. A couple traveling who visited South Africa get maggots under their skin; a man suffers coughing fits, severe headaches, vertigo, and violent episodes (including chasing his son with a wrench and punching him in the face) before doctors discover the fungus Cryptococcus neoformans has infected his brain.
8. A Deadly Swim
Air Date: 2013-12-18
A teenage boy develops stomach pains, starts vomiting blood and fecal matter, and has nausea from accidentally swallowing a bristle from a grill brush, which got lodged in his intestines; in 2011, a 16-year-old girl who swam in a Florida river experiences a headache, fever, vomiting, mental confusion, unusual behavior and dies from amoebic meningitis; an industrial painter has difficulties breathing and walking from Blastomyces dermatitidis.
9. My Christmas from Hell
Air Date: 2013-12-18
A special episode with three cases that happened during the holidays – A newlywed woman gets a constant pain in her scalp from botfly larvae; a Virginia man gets sharp back pains and develops a hole in his heart from Streptococcus viridans; a female business consultant and part-time photographer gets valley fever.
10. I Almost Killed My Baby
Air Date: 2013-12-18
A newborn baby develops hydrocephalus from a parasitic disease called toxoplasmosis, which was contracted from his mother; an 11-year-old boy suffers headaches, vomiting, seizures, and starts speaking gibberish from being infected with the eastern equine encephalitis virus; a teenager living on a farm suffers a severe cough and fever from Paragonimus kellicotti.
1. Backyard Killers
Air Date: 2016-10-06
This episode looks back at three cases from past episodes: a teenage boy with a grill bristle in his intestines (A Deadly Swim); another teenage boy with leprosy (Help! My Son is a Leper); and a teenage girl whose lungs are afflicted with Cryptococcus gattii fungi (My Body Is Rotting).
2. I Have a What in my What?
Air Date: 2016-10-13
A infant becomes totally paralyzed after accidental exposure to botulinum toxin; a Texas man develops severe pain in his scrotum for which doctors think is an ingrown hair, but it actually turns out to be botfly larvae which infected him while he urinated outdoors in Costa Rica; a Florida model/dentist is confounded by her mysterious weight gain, and over the course of a year she suffers continuing weight gain, blurry vision, crippling hand pain, and muscle weakness before it is discovered her breast implants are contaminated with Aspergillus fungi.
3. There's Something Living In My Hand!
Air Date: 2016-10-20
An Idaho 17-year-old football player is struck with a sore throat, breathing difficulties/lung pain, confusion, kidney failure and even tackles his own mother from Group A streptococcus bacteria infecting his blood; an Illinois mother of three kids develops an itchy eye which leads to face numbness, loss of depth perception and blindness as the result of an Acanthamoeba keratitis infection; a dockmaster develops crippling pain in his hand from a Mycobacterium marinum infection along with pimples on his palm from barnacles growing in his hand.
4. My Wife is Rotting
Air Date: 2016-10-27
During a family vacation cruise, a Louisiana 2-year-old is restless and drools, which leads to vomiting and kidney and liver failure due to abrin poisoning after accidentally eating a bead from a necklace made of the rosary pea plant on a trip to Jamaica; a California mother-of-two develops a bloated and descended stomach and colon, a body-wide rash, fluid in her abdomen and meningitis from valley fever caused by Coccidioides immitis; a 6-year-old boy suffers a headache, vomiting, blindness and bizarre neurological symptoms which include crossed eyes, that prove fatal. Only when it is too late is it discovered that he was infected with the Balamuthia mandrillaris amoeba.
5. My Hands Are Falling Off
Air Date: 2016-11-03
A Canadian woman suffers a piercing pain in her throat and vomiting from accidentally swallowing a grill bristle (for which she thought was a sprig of rosemary) which got caught in her throat during a barbecue; an Arizona retired firefighter vacationing in Belize develops growing and eventually opening purple bumps on his limbs, lethargy, and hand pain from cutaneous leishmaniasis; a Nebraska 14-year-old girl is struck with swollen lymph nodes in her neck, dizziness, fatigue, blackouts, and body pain from Tularemia.
6. My Evil Twin is Driving Me Crazy
Air Date: 2016-11-10
A four-year-old Pennsylvania boy gets a runny nose with red discharge, stomach pains, pale skin and extreme pain from accidentally putting a button battery up his nose; an Idaho college student gets a cut on her knee, but then develops agonizing leg pain followed by septic shock from an Aeromonas hydrophila infection; a Pennsylvania woman has strange outbursts and appears to lose her mind from a teratoma growing on her ovary giving her Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis.
7. Holiday from Hell
Air Date: 2016-12-15
The show's fourth Christmas-themed episode, and the second episode of the series that looks back at three past cases, including: a baby whose brain was infected with Cytomegalovirus in utero (All I Got For Christmas Is Brain Surgery); a woman whose eye is infected with the worm Dirofilaria immitis (A Holiday in the Hospital); and a man who has a surgical sponge left in his colon (also A Holiday in the Hospital).
1. Help! I'm Being Eaten Alive
Air Date: 2017-10-15
A young girl is brought to the hospital with stabbing pains in her scalp; a mother's mysterious symptoms threaten to tear a family apart; a deadly invader turns a relaxing vacation into a nightmare.
2. My Brain Is Under Attack
Air Date: 2017-10-15
A man falls comatose; a college student has a sore throat; and a young woman's symptoms confound experts.
3. My Second Brain Is Killing Me
Air Date: 2017-10-22
A man has something living in his eye; a young girl mysteriously falls ill; and a woman's bizarre symptoms push her to the brink of insanity.
4. The Monster in My Mouth
Air Date: 2017-10-29
An infant falls mysteriously ill; a biology professor becomes an unexpected host; and a family man is brought to the brink.
5. There's a Maggot in My Head
Air Date: 2017-11-05
A new mother is in critical condition; a young boy has an ailment that no antibiotics can cure; and a young man has an invader in his brain.
6. Something Is Eating My Baby
Air Date: 2017-11-12
A young boy has a strange condition; a woman's symptoms push her to madness; and a toddler falls into a trance-like state when something begins eating his brain.
7. Braced for Death
Air Date: 2017-11-19
A teenager develops mysterious blotchy sores; an athlete is hit by a rare infection; and a woman battles strange bouts of vomiting.
8. I Can't Stop Coughing Up Blood
Air Date: 2017-11-26
A man coughs up blood; a newlywed husband is struck down by a rare disease; and a father struggles with abdominal pain.
9. The Organ Shredder
Air Date: 2017-12-03
An infant is suddenly paralyzed; a father is infected with a monster that threatens to blind him; and a woman's excruciating pain confounds doctors.
10. My Lungs Are Rotting
Air Date: 2017-12-10
A woman is struck down by a dangerous parasite; an infant falls mysterious ill; and a fungus brings a young man to the brink of death.
11. All I Got For Christmas
Air Date: 2017-12-17
After a man hits his head, he's left fighting a one-on-a-million medical mystery; a boy's wounded knee becomes home to an uninvited guest; a man unwittingly feeds his own intended killer.
12. There Are Twigs In My Urine
Air Date: 2017-12-17
A man develops a strange growth on his wrist; a nurse finds twig-like pieces in her urine; and a pregnant woman falls ill with flu-like symptoms.
13. Holiday Hell: Why Is My Abdomen Full of Boils?
Air Date: 2013-12-01
Christmas time is here, and these three victims each receive a monstrous gift. In Florida, a woman is out Christmas shopping when she suddenly feels a stabbing pain in her eye so severe that she believes she sees shadows of worms in her eye.
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Rating
8.2/10
Release Date
2009-07-01
Episodes
76 (8 seasons)
Status
Ended
Cast
Production Companies
Optomen Productions