The doctor may decide to treat the entire family, especially if your child has had a pin
What to Expect: After taking the pinworm medicine, itching should stop in 5 to 7 days.
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.
How long does it take to work? The medicine should start to work straight away but it may take several days to kill all the worms.
Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach/abdominal cramps, headache, drowsiness, dizziness, trouble sleeping, or loss of appetite may occur. If any of these effects last or get worse, tell your doctor or pharmacist promptly.
Showering may help avoid possible re-contamination in bath water. Change underwear and bedding daily. This helps remove eggs. Launder in hot water.
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.
If you are self-treating for pinworms, take the medication once only. Do not repeat the dose without talking with your doctor first. Depending on the type of worm infection you have, your doctor may direct you to take the medication only once or for several days.
How is pinworm infection treated? - With either prescription or over-the- counter drugs. Consult a health care provider before treating a suspected case of pinworm. Treatment involves a two-dose course. The second dose should be given 2 weeks after the first.
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.
Pinworm eggs are infective within a few hours after being deposited on the skin. They can survive up to two (2) weeks on clothing, bedding, or other objects. The pinworms grow to adult size within two (2) to six (6) weeks. Pinworm infections can be spread as long as either worms or eggs are present.
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.
Although medicine takes care of the worm infection, the itching may continue for about a week. So the doctor also might give your child a cream or other medicine to help stop the itching.
While symptoms are usually mild, anal itching can be severe. Sleeplessness: Because anal itching is worse at night, people suffering from a pinworm infection can have trouble sleeping, which can lead to decreased concentration, tiredness and weight loss.
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.
So many of us or our family members have experienced this relatively mild though distressing infection.
If you take too much
Taking an extra dose of mebendazole is unlikely to harm you. However, you may get side effects such as: stomach cramps. feeling or being sick (nausea or vomiting)
Treatment involves two doses of medication with the second dose being given 2 weeks after the first dose.
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.
The apparent elimination half-life after an oral dose ranges from 3 to 6 hours in most patients. Less than 2% of orally administered mebendazole is excreted in urine and the remainder in the feces as unchanged drug or its metabolites.
Based on data from the current study, 4–5 seconds of exposure at 80°C appears sufficient to inactivate Ascaris eggs. At 75°C and 70°C treatment may also be effective, but exposure time should be increased to achieve the same level of inactivation.
A pinworm is a white, very thin worm about 1/4 inch long that moves. If it doesn't wiggle, it's probably lint or a thread. Pinworms usually are seen in the anal and buttock area, especially at night or early in the morning. Sometimes a pinworm is found on the surface of a bowel movement.