Fiji holiday turns into nightmare

A teenager has shared how she contracted a flesh-eating parasite that lived inside her for six years.

Carly Goff was on a family holiday in Fiji where she ate undercooked fish contaminated with a flesh-eating parasite called Gnathostomiasis.

The flesh-eating parasite fed off her insides for six years, and Goff says she lived in complete pain for the six years it took doctors to diagnose her with the parasite.

"I was so sick and I was in so much pain, burning feet, burning face, almost like an acid-like burning," she told Seven News.

Carly Goff was on a family holiday in Fiji when she ate undercooked fish contaminated with a parasite. Photo / 7 News

"It's like a worm kind of thing, it has teeth and moves around by chewing through the tissues and muscles and destroys everywhere it goes."

After years of tests, she was finally diagnosed two months ago, and was treated with a worm tablet that starved the parasite.

Royal North Shore Hospital's Dr Bernard Hudson told Seven News the parasite could be deadly if left untreated.

"It can invade any organ system, through the lungs, brain, get into the bladder, liver, anywhere,"' he said.