What are the symptoms of having worms in stomach

What are the symptoms of having worms in stomach

This Woman’s ‘Electric Shock’ Leg Pain Was Caused By a Parasite in Her Back - Self

Posted: 02 Aug 2018 12:00 AM PDT

When you feel a weird pain in your leg, you might assume that you slept on it funny or went a little too hard on your morning run. What you don't expect is to be told your pain is due to a parasite lodged in your back. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened to a woman in rural France. Luckily, her story, detailed in a recent case report published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine, is highly unusual.

According to the report, the woman, 35, went to the ER and said that she had been having trouble riding her horse for three months. She had been experiencing weakness, falls, and experiencing "electric shocks" in both of her legs, and she said her symptoms were only getting worse. Doctors conducted a slew of tests to try to figure out what was going on, and it was only after she had an MRI of her spine that they found a lesion on her ninth thoracic vertebra (around the middle of her spine). After testing it, they discovered the lump was caused by a parasitic tapeworm, Echinococcus granulosus.

The woman had surgery to remove the tapeworm and was treated with the antiparasitic medication albendazole, the case report says. At a nine-month follow-up, she didn't have any residual symptoms.

Echinococcus granulosus is actually a pretty common parasite, but it's unusual for it to show up in a developed country.

Echinococcus worms, which are tiny tapeworms, can cause an illness called echinococcosis. The illness comes in two forms: cystic echinococcosis (which is what the woman in the case report had) and alveolar echinococcosis (which can cause parasitic tumors to form in the brain, liver, lungs, and other organs), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In most cases, the diseases are transferred to humans by animals, usually dogs. When dogs eat the organs of other animals that contain the tapeworms, the CDC explains, the dogs shed the tapeworms in their poop, which contaminates the ground. The most common way people get these tapeworms is by accidentally eating dirt, water, or food that's been contaminated by infected dog poop, according to the CDC.

More than one million people are infected with these tapeworms at any given time around the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), but it's more common in countries like Argentina, Peru, and China. "It's not something that you see routinely in the U.S.," Amesh A. Adalja, M.D., senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, tells SELF. "Most infectious disease doctors in the U.S. probably haven't seen these here," he says, unless they're taking care of someone who has recently been to a country where the tapeworms are more common.

Once the parasite gets in you, it tends to head for your liver or lungs, according to the WHO.

Once it reaches your lungs or liver, it forms what are known as hydatid cysts. These cysts can also show up in your bones, kidneys, spleen, muscles, central nervous system, and eyes, the WHO says, but that's less common.

The symptoms are about as fun as you'd expect if you're growing a tapeworm inside you. They include stomach pain, nausea, and vomiting when it's in your liver, and a chronic cough, chest pain, and shortness of breath when it's in the lungs, according to the WHO. Other symptoms depend on where the cyst forms as well as the tissues around it, which explains why this woman had back pain and electric jolts in her leg after it formed on her spine, Dr. Adalja says.

You can have echinococcus worms in your body for years until the cysts grow to a point where you would develop symptoms, according to the WHO. But about half of patients that receive treatment for an echinococcus illness do so within a few years of being infected. The parasite is usually picked up by CT scan or MRI and treatment generally involves surgery and antiparasitic medication, the WHO says.

Remember that this is super rare in the U.S., so if you're ever in pain, you don't need to assume it's related to a parasite.

The researchers point out in the case report that the woman had "no history of foreign travel," but that she did own a cat and "had contact with cattle." So, it's likely she picked it up from an animal.

But even if you live on a farm, you shouldn't freak out. "These case reports get attention because they're medical oddities and so unique," Dr. Adalja says. "This is not something the average person in the U.S. needs to worry about."

Related:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tapeworms: How to tell if you have one - Fox News

Image
Tapeworms: How to tell if you have one - Fox News Tapeworms: How to tell if you have one - Fox News Posted: 14 Dec 2019 12:00 AM PST A tapeworm is a parasite that you can get if you eat the infected and undercooked meat of an animal. (iStock) Dear Dr. Manny, I ate something on a trip to Brazil and now I've been having terrible stomach issues. I've read about people who have had tapeworms and I don't know if I have one. How do you know if you have a tapeworm? What do the eggs look like? How do you diagnose a tapeworm? Will the worm die on its own? Is it common to get a tapeworm?  Thanks for your question. A tapeworm is a parasite that you can get if you eat the infected and undercooked meat of an animal. So you could have gotten a tapeworm by eating something. It's hard to know if you have a tapeworm on your own, but the most common symptoms are abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea, unexplained weight los...
Read more

What Is Vitiligo? All About This Unique Skin Condition That Impacts Skin Pigmentation, and How To Treat It - Parade Magazine

Image
Vitiligo is a condition that causes the skin to begin to lose its pigmentation—or color—for no apparent reason, resulting in white patches that are especially noticeable in people whose skin tone is naturally dark. If you've heard of this chronic skin condition, there's a very good chance it was in association with Michael Jackson. The King of Pop is reported to have had vitiligo—and other celebrities have it as well, including model Winnie Harlow, who has had an empowering presence of showing the condition's unique beauty and style. All in all, though, it's a fairly rare disorder: Approximately .5% to 2% of the world's population has vitiligo, according to a study in Dermatology Reports . What's behind this uncommon disease and is there a treatment for it? Here's what the experts have to say. What Is Vitiligo? What is vitiligo exactly? "Vitiligo is mainly an autoimmune disease of the skin that targets pigment-producing cells called melanocytes," s...
Read more

The 18 Best Body Butters to Revive Your Skin for Spring - WWD

Image
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, WWD may receive an affiliate commission. When you're plagued with dry skin, it can feel like no amount of body lotions or creams are ever moisturizing enough. And you're not imagining things — many hydrating products can just simply sit on the surface of skin, rarely getting absorbed to repair dryness. But that's where body butters save the day. These rich, ultra-concentrated creams can resolve a plethora of concerns, from cracked skin to achy muscles to reducing the appearance of cellulite. But first and foremost, what is body butter?  What is Body Butter? "I like to think it's a descriptive term," says Bee Shapiro , founder of fragrance and body care brand Ellis Brooklyn and New York Times columnist. "It's not a technical term, but we use it to communicate that the texture is extra rich and thick."&...
Read more