Symptoms may include diarrhoea, tiredness and weakness, abdominal pain and weight loss. Some worms cause anaemia.
find a large worm or large piece of worm in your poo. have a red, itchy worm-shaped rash on your skin. have sickness, diarrhoea or a stomach ache for longer than 2 weeks. are losing weight for no reason.
The best way to diagnose this infection is to do a tape test. The best time to do this is in the morning before bathing, because pinworms lay their eggs at night. Steps for the test are: Firmly press the sticky side of a 1-inch (2.5 centimeters) strip of cellophane tape over the anal area for a few seconds.
An immune response to parasites, specifically worms, triggers an IgE response. IgE elicits an immune response by binding to Fc receptors on mast cells, eosinophils, and basophils, causing degranulation and cytokine release. In atopic individuals, IgE is also made to allergens. IgE is at low levels in the blood.
Your child may be fussy and wake often at night. If your child is infected, it may take 2 to 8 weeks for symptoms to start.
Without treatment, threadworm may give rise to vaginitis (inflammation of the vagina) in girls and women. You can often see threadworms, a 1cm thread-like worm, wriggling in your child's stools or their bottom.
Symptoms of threadworms
However, they can cause intense itching around the anus (and the vagina in girls), particularly at night when the female worms are laying eggs. This can disturb sleep. In some cases, you may spot threadworms on your bed clothes or sheets at night, or you may notice them in your stools.
Threadworms do not go away by themselves, and people do not build up immunity to them, so they must be treated in order to eradicate them totally from the body.
As with viral infections, antibody is effective only against extracellular parasites and where parasite antigens are displayed on the surface of infected cells. Antibody can neutralize parasites by combining with various surface molecules, blocking or interfering with their function.
Intestinal worms (also known as soil-transmitted helminths) affect more than 1.7 billion people worldwide including more than 1 billion children, according to the World Health Organization. The three most common intestinal worms are hookworm, ascaris (roundworm), and trichuris (whipworm).
A person with intestinal worms may not have any symptoms, but threadworms (Enterobius vermicularis), the most common worm infection in Australia, often do cause symptoms. A person with threadworms (also known as pinworms) may have an itchy bottom or redness and scratch marks around the bottom.
Although often asymptomatic, parasitic infections can lead to disruptions in mood, behavior and sleep – particularly in children with worms. The most common worm infection amongst Australian children is threadwork (pinworm, Enterobius vermicularis).
Common signs include a cough, breathlessness or breathing difficulties but can include weight loss, lethargy, reduced appetite, anaemia and abnormal bleeding.
Adult worms can live up to 7 years in a person's lymph system. The disease only spreads from person to person through mosquitoes. When a mosquito bites an infected person, they can spread the tiny worms to other people they bite.
Take the correct dewormer
When infected with worms, it should be dewormed periodically, for adults and children over 2 years old should be dewormed 2 to 3 times a year, ie every 4 to 6 months.
Parasites typically have life cycles that can last between 7 and 21 days, meaning symptoms can flare during certain phases of these life cycles. If you find that you regularly have a good week or two and then feel terrible for a few days, this could be a sign that your parasites are alive, rather than dying.
Taking probiotic supplements or eating foods rich in probiotics may help your body work more efficiently at killing parasites. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine reports that while each person reacts differently to probiotics, they may have the capacity to suppress the growth of parasites.
Parasites can live in the intestines for years without causing symptoms.
However, hygiene measures alone may work. The worms die after about six weeks. Provided that you do not swallow any new eggs, no new worms will grow to replace them. So, if you continue the hygiene measures described above for six weeks, this should break the cycle of re-infection, and clear your gut of threadworms.
COMBANTRIN® is a highly effective treatment to rid the body of threadworm infections – just one dosage of COMBANTRIN® or COMBANTRIN®-1 kills adult worms within the body, either through paralysis with COMBANTRIN® or by preventing them from absorbing the glucose they need to survive – with COMBANTRIN®-1.
Though the parasite does absorb some of your digested food through its skin, it won't eat enough to make you hungry.
Stomach/abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, dizziness, or drowsiness may occur. If any of these effects last or get worse, tell your doctor or pharmacist promptly. Remember that this medication has been prescribed because your doctor has judged that the benefit to you is greater than the risk of side effects.
The worm may be seen around the anus or on the child's bottom. It is especially active at night or early morning. Rarely, the pinworm is seen on the surface of a stool. The pinworm's secretions are a strong skin irritant and cause the itching.