How do you know if you have worms in your poop

How An 18-Year-Old Died From Pork Tapeworm Larvae In His Brain - Forbes
See what happens when tapeworms infest your brain - Popular Science
Salmonella linked to hedgehogs spreading - Press Herald
Teen dies of tapeworm larvae infestation in the brain - CNN

How An 18-Year-Old Died From Pork Tapeworm Larvae In His Brain - Forbes

Posted: 30 Mar 2019 08:37 AM PDT

This is a microscopic photo of cysticercosis in a pig: a baby pork tapeworm forming a cyst in the muscle of a pig. (Photo: Getty Images)

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What's worse than having parasites in your testicle? How about parasites in your brain?

What's worse than having parasites in your brain? How about many, many parasites in your brain?

What's worse than having many, many parasites in your brain? How about having many, many parasites in your brain, and parasites in your testicle and your eye?

The New England Journal of Medicine published a case of an 18-year-old man who had all that. He had had a week of pain in his right groin and then went to the emergency room after suffering a seizure. He was confused, had swelling over his right eye, and had a tender right testicle. Magnetic resonance imaging of his head showed this:

Images in Clinical Medicine: Disseminated Cysticercosis https://t.co/KayQwgGRWV pic.twitter.com/Njo9XCEQ9o

— NEJM (@NEJM) March 28, 2019

No, it is not normal to have all those white spots in your head. Each white spot is a cyst, created by the larvae of Taenia solium, otherwise known as the pork tapeworm. Using ultrasound, the doctors also found cysts in the patient's eye and testis. If you must "in cyst" on knowing the medical term for this condition, it's cysticercosis. Cysticerci are these cystic lesions formed by the young-uns of the pork tapeworm. Neurocysticercosis is when these lesions occur in the brain. These cystic lesions can cause inflammation and damage to the surrounding areas. If its in the brain, these can damage the brain, leading to a variety of neurological symptoms. If its in the testes, ouch.

In some cases, you can use anti-parasitic medications to try to kill these parasites. However, when the parasites get damaged and die, they can cause inflammation and fluid-formation in the area, sort of like how the vampires getting killed in the movie Lost Boys isn't clean and pretty. Since there were so many larvae in this man's case, the doctors were worried that using anti-parasitic medications would cause too much inflammation and fluid formation that could then damage vital structures nearby like big parts of his brain. Thus, instead, the doctors just administered dexamethasone to reduce the inflammation and anti-seizure medications to prevent seizures. With so many parasites in his body, unfortunately, the patient died two weeks after first being seen at the emergency room.

The pork tapeworm can cause two types of infection in humans. One is called teaniasis, when the tapeworm is just in your intestines. The other is cysticercosis when the parasite is in parts of your body besides your intestine.

If you are wondering how to get the pork tapeworm in your intestines, the name pork tapeworm is a giveaway. If you eat raw or undercooked pork that has cysticerci (i.e., the cysts with the young parasites) in it, those parasites can then attach to your intestine walls. There, they suck. That is, they slowly suck your blood while growing larger and laying eggs. These eggs then pass through your poop to the outside world, contaminating with pork tapeworm eggs wherever you poop.

This is yet another reason why you shouldn't poop in the kitchen or in a pig trough. Anyone, human or pig, who then eats these eggs can then eventually develop cysticercosis. This happens after the eggs hatch in the person's intestines. The baby tapeworms subsequently burrow through the intestine walls, get into the bloodstream, and then use the bloodstream as a Metro subway system to get to different parts of the body, such as the brain, muscles, and the liver. Next, these babies burrow into the tissue and create the cysts. Depending on where they are location, these cysticerci may not cause any symptoms. So you could possibly have these baby parasites in your body for a long time without knowing it, which is a wonderful thought.

This illustration shows the life cycle of a Pork tapeworm (Taenia solium). (Photo By DEA PICTURE LIBRARY/De Agostini/Getty Images)

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Here is a lecture on that includes some more detailed, useful information on Taenia solium, such as you should suspect teaniasis if you pass a long chain of "tapeworms from your butt":

You can find cysticercosis throughout the world, although it is more common in lower income countries and seems to be relatively uncommon in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that it is more common "where pigs roam freely and eat human feces." How do you "re-cyst" or avoid pork tapeworm infections and cysticercosis besides telling pigs not to eat human feces? Well, don't "drink water or eat food contaminated with tapeworm eggs" or "put contaminated fingers in their mouth," as per the CDC. This means maintaining good sanitation and food safety standards.

Therefore, if someone may touch your food or drink, make sure that you insist the the person washes his or her hands frequently and thoroughly. Otherwise, there's a chance that you may result in cysts.

See what happens when tapeworms infest your brain - Popular Science

Posted: 30 Mar 2019 02:28 AM PDT

Tapeworms are revolting no matter where you find them. But when they are in your gut, at least the parasites are in their natural habitat. We are, unfortunately, their primary hosts and, as parasites, their job is to colonize our intestines, shed eggs out our bums, and infect other animals.

Normally, they perform this job relatively quietly. They eat your food and hang out inside your guts, but they don't generally want to kill you. That'd reduce their number of potential homes. That's why many people infected with tapeworms stay fairly symptom-free (we regret to inform you that often folks realize they're infected when bits of the worms start coming out in their poop). In the rare event the intestinal infection does cause symptoms, they usually include loss of appetite, weight loss, an upset stomach, and perhaps abdominal pain.

But that's all assuming they stay in your gut.

As one tragic case report in the New England Journal of Medicine this week shows, that's not always what happens. Tapeworms can get into other parts of your body and cause much more severe symptoms. A teenager in India who had been infected with tapeworms died as a result of numerous cysts—formed by the tapeworms—in his brain (he had them throughout his body as well), which doctors only found when he showed up at the emergency room in Faridabad with generalized tonic-clonic seizures. These full-brain seizures, plus his groin pain, eye swelling, and general confusion are fairly common symptoms for bodily infection with tapeworms.

It is possible for tapeworms to migrate out of human intestines, according to the Mayo Clinic, but this kind of full-body infection results from a different disease pathway and is far more common in another animal: pigs.

The kind of tapeworm infection an animal gets largely depends on which stage of life the worm is in when you ingest the parasite. Tapeworms, specifically the species Taenia solium, have a life cycle that depends on both humans and pigs (there's also a beef tapeworm, but it doesn't cause bodily cysts). T. solium begins life as an egg inside a human, though it quickly departs out the anus. Pigs who consume either feces or infected water also ingest the eggs. Those eggs travel to the pig's guts, where they hatch, burrow through the intestinal wall, and migrate to the farm animal's muscles and organs. There they become cysts. This kind of infection is known as cysticercosis, which is different from what we'd call "having tapeworms" the way most people get them.

Humans usually become infected because they eat undercooked pork with infective cysts, thus leaving the worms (called cysticerci) alive. The cysticerci travel to our guts, where they mature into adult tapeworms roughly 10 feet long, which in turn lay eggs and start the whole process over.

Technically, though, as this case study proves, if a human eats the tapeworm eggs, we can get cysts just like pigs. That's what happened to this poor boy—he must've eaten the eggs at some point, gotten infected, and not realized until his body was riddled with cysts. (And please note, you can't get these cyst just from eating undercooked pork.)

The specific form of the disease this boy had, neurocysticercosis, is very rare in developed nations because farms in those areas have hygiene standards intended to avoid any potential contamination of both pigs and humans. Unfortunately, that doesn't make it rare worldwide. The World Health Organization estimates that roughly 2.5 to 8.3 million people suffer from neurocysticercosis every year, mostly in developing parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Subsistence farmers there don't have access to the same resources to prevent disease, and thus infections are far more common.

If you're reading this in a country like the U.S., though, you're highly unlikely to ever even be exposed to tapeworm eggs unless you travel internationally. Consider yourself lucky.

Salmonella linked to hedgehogs spreading - Press Herald

Posted: 30 Mar 2019 02:41 PM PDT

Every hedgehog has its thorn.

Two months after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised people not to "kiss or snuggle hedgehogs" because of a salmonella outbreak, the federal health agency announced that six more people in three more states, including Virginia, have fallen ill after coming into contact with the prickly pets.

As of Friday, 17 people nationwide have been infected with a strain of Salmonella typhimurium that the CDC first warned in January could be linked to pet hedgehogs.

No one has died, but two people were hospitalized.

"Epidemiologic and laboratory evidence indicate that contact with pet hedgehogs is the likely source of this outbreak," the CDC said in an investigation notice.

In Virginia, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors legalized household hedgehogs in January – just days before the CDC issued the first notice that it was investigating the salmonella outbreak in connection with the creatures. A separate effort to do the same in the District of Columbia failed in December.

It doesn't appear that the recent legalization of pet hedgehogs in Fairfax County is linked to the two cases reported in the state based on information from the Virginia Department of Health.

Both of the people sickened lived in the southwest region of Virginia and "one definitely had hedgehog exposure," said Maribeth Brewster, a department spokeswoman.

"Washing hands after handling and cleaning up after these types of pets and all pets can reduce the likelihood of illness transmission," she added.

Other states where people have been sickened with the salmonella strain include Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.

The largest number of cases come out of Minnesota and Missouri, with three each.

Elaine Becker, who has cared for more than 100 hedgehogs over the years through her work at local animal rescues in Roanoke, Virginia, said having pet hedgehogs has become a recent fad. People have become enamored with the cute creatures but don't know how to care for them. Household hedgehogs are usually in cages and running on wheels, where poop can get stuck on their feet, she said. Pet owners should clean out hedgehog cages weekly and pick up droppings daily – preferably with gloves to avoid getting sick.

"After touching any animal or raw food wash your hands," said Becker, also a member of the Hedgehog Welfare Society and International Hedgehog Association. "You wouldn't let your kid play with raw chicken and then let them stick their hands in their mouths."

Hedgehogs have become so popular that many have their own social media accounts. The spike in hedgehog demand has also lead certain jurisdictions recently to lift bans on having them as pets.

Officials identified the salmonella strain in the recent outbreak after studying samples collected from eight hedgehogs in Minnesota, including three that were in the homes of two people who got sick. Most of those who have fallen ill appear to be young children, according to the CDC.

Of the people interviewed, 13 out of 15 said the had contact with a hedgehog before they fell sick, but the CDC said it has not identified a common supplier that may be the source of the outbreak.

"Hedgehogs can carry Salmonella germs in their droppings while appearing healthy and clean," the CDC warned.

But some longtime lovers of the pincushions incarnate say the recent CDC hedgehog warning is hogwash.

Zug Standing Bear, who has cared for more than 500 hedgehogs in 20 years through his rescue based in Colorado, said the recent warning from the CDC echoes an alert the agency sent in 2012. That year, the CDC reported 20 cases of salmonella – including one death – in eight states where a hedgehog was in the house of someone sickened.

Standing Bear said the hedgehog-related illness could be random statistically and it shouldn't deter people from responsibly owning one as a pet.

Becker said the recent CDC alert unfairly singles out hedgehogs. Many household pets, such as turtles and birds, can carry salmonella, Becker said. Following common sense hygiene rules and doing research before buying a hedgehog – or any pet – can prevent problems.

"They can make wonderful pets, but they're not for everyone," Becker said. "If you can't handle the poop and feeding them meal worms, get a stuffed animal."

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