How leeches became the latest health trend

Blood covered the hotel room where Tsetsi Stoyanova had checked in for the night. It stained the sheets and the towels and trailed over the bed. The mess dribbled out from a wound on Stoyanova's back. It smelled. Not like sweat or iron but something else — something strong.

"The bleeding wouldn't stop. It just kept on going and going and going," Stoyanova says. "I made everything red and bloody."

But Stoyanova, then in her 30s, wasn't nervous about losing blood. She was excited. It was why she'd journeyed across her home country of Bulgaria.

Earlier that day, she and her boyfriend had clambered up a remote hilltop outside the city of Kardzhali, searching for a special lake renowned among certain locals. When they came across a stand of trees covered in ribbons, they knew they'd found it.

It was the peak of summer and the sun had turned the usually wide lake into a dried-up swamp. Stoyanova wiggled her toes in the muddy shore to entice what she had been pursuing for months: a thirsty leech.

[theweek.com]

---

Disclaimer: This post is checked for correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Any attempts at humor are solely the responsibility of the author and bear no claim that any and all readers will approve or appreciate said attempt at humor.
My name is DP, and I approve this message.

Yuck.

---

rj
AKA
Vreemac, Moth of the Future

---

Northern California Coast

Marginally less dangerous than infecting yourself with tapeworms...

---

In tha 360. MRF User Map