Mebendazole is used to treat infections caused by worms. It works by keeping the worm from absorbing sugar (glucose), so that the worm loses energy and dies. This medicine is available only with your doctor's prescription.
Mebendazole is a type of medicine for treating worms. It's used mainly for infections of the gut such as threadworms (sometimes known as pinworms) and other less common worm infections (whipworm, roundworm and hookworm). It works by stopping worms from using sugar (glucose) to live. This kills the worms.
If you have worms, your GP will prescribe medicine to kill them. You take this for one to three days. The people you live with may also need to be treated. Any worms in your gut will eventually pass out in your poo.
Medication kills the worms, but not their eggs, which can survive for two weeks. Therefore, you also need strict hygiene measures for two weeks after taking medication to prevent you from swallowing eggs which may cause a new infection.
Mebendazole works by preventing the threadworms absorbing sugar, which means they should die within a few days.
The medicine should start to work straight away but it may take several days to kill all the worms. It's important to take the medicine as a pharmacist or doctor tells you. Do not stop early if you have been told to take it for several days.
The Deworming Process after a Few Days
You may be surprised to still see live worms in your dog's feces after deworming them, but this is normal. While this can be an unpleasant image, it's actually a good thing — it means the worms are no longer living inside your dog!
This eventually leads to the worms dying within a few days. Once dead, the worms are then removed from the body by going through the gut and into the stool. However, this treatment threadworms only kills the adult worms and their eggs, so it's important to treat the whole family.
Pinworm eggs become infective within a few hours after being deposited on the skin around the anus and can survive for 2 to 3 weeks on clothing, bedding, or other objects.
Medicine will kill the worms in the gut, but not the eggs that have been laid around the anus. These can survive for up to 2 weeks outside the body on underwear, bedding etc.
You'll likely need to give your doctor a stool sample for a few months to make sure all the worms are gone.
When worms die in the bin, their bodies decompose and are recycled by other worms, along with the food scraps. Worm castings are toxic to live worms. After all the food scraps in a bin are recycled, the worms will eat their own castings which will poison them. Why should a worm bin be harvested every few months?
Pinworm eggs continue to be present (excreted) in the feces of an infected person for up to a week after the treatment, so precautions should be taken to prevent reinfection by washing hands thoroughly, especially under the nails. Bathe daily. Change and wash clothing and bedding frequently.
Mebendazole is used to treat infections caused by worms. It works by keeping the worm from absorbing sugar (glucose), so that the worm loses energy and dies. This medicine is available only with your doctor's prescription.
Deworming programmes are currently relying on just two drugs namely, albendazole or mebendazole. Both these drugs work in the same way. Therefore if the worms develop a resistance to one it's likely they'll also be resistant to the other.
VERMOX® is a Mebendazole containing product that can be used for children aged 1 and up, as well as the whole family. Worms are disintegrated so there is no passing of dead worms.
In order to stop the spread of pinworm and possible re-infection, people who are infected should shower every morning to help remove a large amount of the eggs on the skin.
Because pinworms lay their eggs at night, washing the anal area in the morning can help reduce the number of pinworm eggs on your body. Showering may help avoid possible re-contamination in bath water. Change underwear and bedding daily. This helps remove eggs.
In the morning, before your child goes to the bathroom or washes up, put the sticky side of a piece of clear tape around the anus. Remove the tape and look for pinworms or their eggs. You can also buy a tape test kit at the pharmacy. If you do not find pinworms, do the tape test 2 more mornings in a row, to be sure.
Life cycle of a pinworm
A grown pinworm is yellowish white, slender and about one centimetre long. Around 4 weeks after ingestion, the adult female moves down the gut and exits the body via the anus to lay a batch of eggs on the surrounding skin, often at night. The worm then dies, her reproductive mission complete.
Tip2: Strict hygiene measures can be used to clear up a threadworm infection and reduce the likelihood of re-infection. As the life span of the threadworms is approximately six weeks, it is important that these hygiene methods are followed for this period.
Note: Deworming drugs can cause some side effects such as nausea, dizziness, headache, digestive disorders, abdominal pain, transient diarrhea. However, you do not need to worry too much, because these symptoms are usually mild and go away on their own.
It can take as little as two hours for the worms to start dying off. However, in most cases, the process starts about 12 hours after administering the dewormer. You may continue to see worms in your pup's poop for about a week. If they had a serious infestation, you may see worms for up to two weeks.
The most common adverse effects accompanying mebendazole use are loss of appetite, abdominal pain, diarrhea, flatulence, nausea, vomiting, headache, tinnitus, and elevated liver enzymes.