You can get infected by: touching objects or surfaces with worm eggs on them – if someone with worms doesn't wash their hands. touching soil or swallowing water or food with worm eggs in it – mainly a risk in parts of the world without modern toilets or sewage systems.
For most people, treatment will involve taking a single dose of a medication called mebendazole to kill the worms. If necessary, another dose can be taken after 2 weeks. During treatment and for a few weeks afterwards, it's also important to follow strict hygiene measures to avoid spreading the threadworm eggs.
You might have anal itching, especially at night. You could also have stomach pain, nausea, or vaginal itching. Sometimes pinworms can be seen around your anus or on your underwear or bed sheets about 2 to 3 hours after you've gone to bed.
Symptoms may include diarrhoea, tiredness and weakness, abdominal pain and weight loss. Some worms cause anaemia.
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.
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. The eggs are too small to see, but cause an itch around the anus.
Sometimes worms are visible in the anal area, on underwear, or in the toilet. In stool, they look like small pieces of white cotton thread.
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.
Once a year when the prevalence of soil-transmitted parasitic worms in the community is over 20% Twice a year when the prevalence of soil-transmitted parasitic worms in the community is 50%
Common symptoms of intestinal worms are: abdominal pain. diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. gas and bloating.
The spread of worm infections
Threadworms are easily spread so the slightest contact can pass on the infection, which is why many adults end up with the same infection as their children. To halt the spread of worms, it's crucial to treat all members of the family – not just the youngsters!
Threadworm is spread when children scratch their bottom, causing the eggs to collect under the fingernails. The child then carries the worm eggs back to their mouth with their hands. The eggs can also be spread indirectly, in food, dust, or other items.
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.
This is why you may need to take another dose 2 weeks later to help prevent reinfection. 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. It's important to take the medicine as a pharmacist or doctor tells you.
However, deworming treatment can have some mild side effects such as - dizziness, nausea, headache, and vomiting.
They noted that not deworming children as specified by the World Health Organisation can lead to malnutrition, low blood count, intestinal perforation and death.
Once you have dewormed your puppy, you'll probably want to know how long your dog will continue to poop worms. Puppies will typically poop worms for 2-3 days after they have been dewormed.
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.
Any worms in your gut will eventually pass out in your poo. You may not notice this. To avoid becoming infected again or infecting others, it's very important during the weeks after starting treatment to wash your hands: after going to the toilet.
Having worms can make you feel extreme hunger just after eating, or extreme fullness when you haven't eaten anything. This is because the worms feed on the food that you have eaten, leaving you hungry, but can also cause you to feel nauseous or gaseous, which can make you feel full.
About half the world's population (over 3 billion people) are in infected with at least one of the three worms forming what Columbia University parasitologist Dickson Despommier calls the "unholy trinity"—large roundworm, hookworm and whipworm.