Eating raw or undercooked meats. The main risk factor for tapeworm infection is eating raw or undercooked meat and fish.
Yes; however, the risk of infection with this tapeworm in humans is very low. For a person to become infected with Dipylidium, he or she must accidentally swallow an infected flea. Most reported cases involve children. The most effective way to prevent infections in pets and humans is through flea control.
Tapeworm infections are rare in the United States. When they do happen, they're easy to treat. Often, people may not know they have a tapeworm infection because they have no symptoms or their symptoms are mild.
The most common worm in Australian children is the threadworm, Enterobius vermicularis, sometimes called the pinworm. Infection with other worms such as roundworms, hookworms and tapeworms is less common. Threadworms are small, white, thread-like worms 2 to 13 mm long.
Diagnosis of tapeworm infection
A health care provider tests for a tapeworm infection in the intestines using a test of a stool sample. A lab test may find pieces of tapeworms or eggs. You may give a sample on more than one day.
Management and Treatment
You can easily kill tapeworms with anthelmintic drugs, including praziquantel (Biltricide®), albendazole (Albenza®) and nitazoxanide (Alinia®). Healthcare providers usually recommend praziquantel because it also paralyzes the worm, forcing it to dislodge from your intestinal wall.
Don't Worry, They're Rare
If the thought of tapeworms makes you squirm, take heart. You probably won't ever get one. Less than 1,000 people in the U.S. get them a year.
Sometimes, the tapeworm leaves the body on its own. This is why some people never have symptoms or only have mild symptoms. If a tapeworm doesn't leave your body, your doctor will recommend a treatment based on the type of infection.
In rare cases, tapeworm segments become lodged in the appendix, or the bile and pancreatic ducts. Infection with T. solium tapeworms can result in human cysticercosis, which can be a very serious disease that can cause seizures and muscle or eye damage.
The worms mature in the intestine and then move through the digestive system to lay eggs, at night, in the anal area. The itchiness tends to be worse or more noticeable at night, and can sometimes wake a person with pinworms. A pinworm can lay thousands of microscopic eggs.
Tapeworm infections usually don't cause complications. Problems that may happen include: Anemia. Long-term infection with a fish tapeworm may lead to the body not making enough healthy red blood cells, also called anemia.
Even if you don't have any symptoms, you may find signs of worms in your stool. Worms in human poop can take a number of appearances. For roundworms, you may find pieces of worms or large, live worms in your feces. For pinworms, you may see thin, white worms that appear like pieces of thread.
In general, the mode of tapeworm transmission from pet to person is due to close physical contact such as allowing a pet to lick you or letting it sleep on your bed which causes accidental ingestion of the tapeworm eggs.
Although tapeworms in humans usually cause few symptoms and are easily treated, they can sometimes cause serious, life-threatening problems. That's why it's important to recognize the symptoms and know how to protect yourself and your family.
Many times, people can be infected for long periods of time without even knowing they have a tapeworm infection. While viral or bacterial infections can disappear in a matter of days or weeks, a tapeworm could be with you for years.
An adult dwarf tapeworm can live for 4-6 weeks. However, once you are infected, the dwarf tapeworm may reproduce inside the body (autoinfection) and continue the infection.
Eventually, adult tapeworms reach lengths of up to 11” (30 cm). As the adult tapeworm matures, individual segments called proglottids, break off from the main body of the tapeworm and pass in the cat's feces.
Blue: Likely due to eating lots of blue foods (blueberries) or beverages with blue coloring. Black or tarry: Iron supplements and black licorice. Bleeding in the upper gastrointestinal tract, such as stomach, can blacken stool, as can diseases like colorectal cancer or cirrhosis.
White or clay-like stool is caused by a lack of bile, which may indicate a serious underlying problem. Bile is a digestive fluid produced by the liver and stored in the gallbladder. Stool gets its normal brownish color from bile, which is excreted into the small intestine during the digestive process.
Light-colored stools (grey or clay-colored) in adults can be caused by lack of bile in the digestive system. It is usually from a blockage in the bile ducts, either from a stone or a tumor. Bile helps digest fats and is responsible for the brown color of stool.
People who live in close proximity to livestock or free-range animals and/or have poor sanitation have a greater risk of developing a tapeworm infection. Tapeworm infections are more common in developing areas of the world where sanitation is poor and people may eat undercooked meats.
There are a couple of types of tapeworms causing taeniasis, such as pork tapeworm and beef tapeworm. Taeniasis can cause mild and non-specific symptoms, including abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhoea or constipation when the tapeworms become fully developed in the intestine.
Once ingested, cysticerci attach to the small intestine and develop into adult tapeworms over the course of 2 months. The adult tapeworms produce proglottids that mature, detach, and migrate to the anus and are then passed in the feces.