Wash your hands frequently and scrub under your fingernails after going to the toilet and before eating food. Make sure your child does this too. Keep your child's and your own fingernails short. Change bed linen, towels and underwear daily for several days after treatment.
You must do this straight away after getting up from bed. ❖ Change and wash underwear, nightwear (and bed linen if possible) each day. Avoid shaking clothes and linen as any eggs on them may be wafted into the air and be swallowed.
Washing sheets, clothes, and towels in a washing machine using regular laundry soap can eliminate pinworm eggs. All bedding and toys should be cleaned every 3-7 days for 3 weeks. Underwear and pajamas should be washed daily for 2 weeks.
Eggs may be inhaled from the air or deposited onto food and swallowed. Pinworms can survive up to two weeks on clothing, bedding or other objects, if kept at room temperature.
Pinworm eggs become infective within a few hours after being deposited on the skin around the anus and can survive for 2 to 3 weeks on clothing, bedding, or other objects.
If you or your child has worms, regularly wash clothes and bed linen in hot soapy water every day for several days after treatment. Clean toilet seats and potties regularly. Encourage your child to take a shower or bath regularly (morning is better to help with removing eggs).
Threadworm eggs can survive on surfaces for up to two weeks. As well as being swallowed by a person who touches a contaminated object or surface, threadworm eggs can also be swallowed after being breathed in.
The worms die after about six weeks. Provided that you do not swallow any new eggs, no new worms will grow to replace them. So, if you continue the hygiene measures described above for six weeks, this should break the cycle of re-infection, and clear your gut of threadworms.
Medicine kills the threadworms, but it does not kill the eggs. Eggs can live for up to 2 weeks outside the body.
After worms are added, bedding should be kept moist but not soggy and the top 6 to 8 inches turned every 7 to 10 days to keep it loose. About every 6 to 9 months the old bedding should be replaced with properly prepared new bedding. To change bedding, remove the top 5 or 6 inches (where most of the worms are).
The adult worms live in the lower intestine, coming out of the anus at night to lay their eggs. Children with threadworms can get the eggs under their fingernails when scratching their itchy bottoms at night. The eggs can then be spread via bed linen, bathroom fittings and other items, even food.
Clean the home post-treatment
Wash all the bedsheets and linen that family members have been sleeping on with hot water, to kill any remaining eggs. Don't forget the favourite teddy or security blanket, and take care not to shake linen when removing bedclothes - you could be spreading infectious eggs into the air.
In order to stop the spread of pinworm and possible re-infection, people who are infected should shower every morning to help remove a large amount of the eggs on the skin. Showering is a better method than taking a bath, because showering avoids potentially contaminating the bath water with pinworm eggs.
After a few weeks, the female pinworms move to the end of the large intestine, and they come out of the body at night to lay their eggs around the anus (where poop comes out). The amount of time that passes from when someone swallows the eggs until the worms lay new eggs is about 1 to 2 months.
How often do worms breed? The breeding cycle is approximately 27 days from mating to laying eggs. Worms can double in population every 60 days.
These creatures are actually the larvae of several different insects, including carpet beetles and fleas. They love to infest mattresses, bedding, carpets, and other textiles where they can feast on human skin cells, crumbs, or fabrics. These bed worms can cause skin irritation and allergic reactions in some people.
Pinworm infections are contagious. The worms get into the body when people swallow the tiny pinworm eggs. The eggs can be on contaminated hands, under fingernails, and on things people touch a lot, such as: clothing, bed linens, and towels.
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%
Treatment to get rid of worms
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.
Wash bedsheets, pajamas, underwear, washcloths and towels in hot water to help kill pinworm eggs. Dry on high heat. Don't scratch. Avoid scratching the anal area.
2- Prepare the bedding. Instead of soil, composting red worms live in moist newspaper bedding. Like soil, newspaper strips provide air, water, and food for the worms. Using about 50 pages, tear newspaper into 1/2" to 1" strips.
A worm blanket can be made from hessian, layers of newspaper, cardboard and even an old cotton towel or sheet. The blanket should be placed over the worms, food scraps and bedding.
To remove threadworm eggs and prevent re-infection: Change and wash underwear, nightwear and, if possible bed linen and towels, every day for a few days. A hot water wash, or the heat of an iron, will kill the eggs.