This includes regularly vacuuming your house and thoroughly washing your bathroom and kitchen. If you're pregnant or breastfeeding, hygiene measures are usually recommended without medication. This is also often the case for young children. Read more about treating threadworm infections.
Threadworms live about 5-6 weeks in the gut, and then die. However, before they die the female worms lay tiny eggs around the anus. This tends to be at night when you are warm and still in bed.
Raw garlic
Garlic is said to kill any existing eggs and prevent female pinworms from laying more eggs. You can ingest it in small doses or apply it topically like a salve. If you wish to ingest the garlic, dice up a clove and mix it into pasta or sprinkle it on bread. You can also eat the garlic on its own.
"Changing and washing bedding can help to remove threadworm eggs within the linen," agrees Dr Luke Powles, clinical director at Bupa UK. "However, be careful when removing the sheets as shaking bedding around may cause the eggs to land on other surfaces and spread infection."
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.
Mebendazole is the main medication used to treat threadworm infections. It can be bought over the counter from your local pharmacy or prescribed by your GP. It's available as a chewable tablet or a liquid. Mebendazole works by preventing the threadworms absorbing sugar, which means they should die within a few days.
The medications used for the treatment of pinworm are either mebendazole, pyrantel pamoate, or albendazole. Any of these drugs are given in one dose initially, and then another single dose of the same drug two weeks later. Pyrantel pamoate is available without prescription.
To treat pinworm infection, your doctor may recommend over-the-counter pyrantel pamoate or prescribe medication to all members of your household to prevent infection and reinfection. The most common prescription anti-parasite medications for pinworms are: Mebendazole. Albendazole (Albenza)
Threadworms live for about 5-6 weeks in the gut, and then die. Before they die, the female worms lay tiny eggs around the anus (back passage). This tends to occur at night when you are warm and still in bed.
Coconut is the most effective home remedy to treat intestinal worms. Consume a tbsp of crushed coconut in your breakfast. After 3 hours, drink about one glass of lukewarm milk mixed with 2 tbsps of castor oil. Drink this for a week to get rid of all types of intestinal worms.
Treatment to get rid of worms
If you have worms, a GP will prescribe medicine to kill them. You take this for 1 to 3 days. The people you live with may also need to be treated. Any worms in your gut will eventually pass out in your poo.
This infection occurs after a person swallows tapeworm eggs. The larvae get into tissues such as muscle and brain, and form cysts there (these are called cysticerci).
The most common symptoms of a threadworm can include: An itchy bottom. General irritability and behavioural changes. Trouble sleeping, or restless sleep, sometimes resulting in bed-wetting.
If you or your child have threadworms that won't go away or keep coming back, speak to a doctor. You should also see a doctor if you see slime or blood in poo, even if you don't have other symptoms of a threadworm infection.
Do not scratch. Itching around the anus caused by a pinworm infection usually happens at night. Try wearing gloves, pyjamas, and close-fitting clothing to help prevent scratching.
How long does pinworms last? The life cycle of a pinworm is 4 to 6 weeks. Without treatment, infestation will continue as long as fresh eggs are being swallowed, unless a person develops immunity to pinworms, which is unusual before age 15.
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.
Daily morning bathing and changing of underclothes helps remove a large proportion of pinworm eggs and can help prevent infection and reinfection. Showering may be preferred to avoid possible contamination of bath water.
To remove threadworm eggs and prevent re-infection: Change and wash underwear, nightwear and, if possible bed linen and towels, every day for a few days. A hot water wash, or the heat of an iron, will kill the eggs.
For the itching, wash the skin around the anus with warm water. For severe itch, use 1% hydrocortisone cream (such as Cortaid) 2 times per day. Use for 1 or 2 days. No prescription is needed.
Threadworm begins with an itchy feeling around the anus (back passage), usually at night under warm sheets. 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.
Eat more raw garlic, pumpkin seeds, pomegranates, beets, and carrots, all of which have been used traditionally to kill parasites. In one study, researchers found that a mixture of honey and papaya seeds cleared stools of parasites in 23 out of 30 subjects. Drink a lot of water to help flush out your system.
You or your child can get threadworms by accidently swallowing worm eggs found on contaminated surfaces. This can happen by scratching the anal region and then touching your mouth or food.