About 80% of the world's inhabitants are infected with various helminths. Often it is necessary to treat a disease for a long time and unsuccessfully, the true cause of which is parasites. Worms that can live in a person violate the integrity of the vascular walls, block the intestinal lumen, and damage internal organs. They produce toxic substances that enter the bloodstream.
What worms do humans have?
Helminths inhabit the intestines or parasitize, inhabiting any other organ. There are several varieties of them, the most common are nematodes. Their body is elongated, in cross-section - round, in shape, narrowed at the ends. Infection occurs most often:
- roundworms, trichines, settling in the small intestine and other organs;
- whipworms that live in the large intestine and feed on blood and mucous membranes;
- pinworms accumulating in the caecum and colon.
Pinworms are especially often found in children when feces are analyzed for enterobiasis.
In addition to those listed, there are more than a hundred less common parasites that inhabit different parts of the intestine. For example, such worms in humans as hookworm and roundworm are in a thin segment, the thick section is often clogged with whipworms. People become hosts for adults of tapeworms with a flat long body. Large bovine and pork tapeworms, cestodes, echinococcus settle in the intestines.
Fluke worms have suckers on their bodies ranging in length from several millimeters (Siberian fluke) to 7 cm (fasciola). Parasites pass to humans as a result of consumption of raw fish, with unboiled water. Sometimes infection with worms occurs through the skin while swimming in lakes, rivers (schistosome). Having settled once, they can feel great in various human organs for several years.
Infection Methods
The ways in which different types of worms get inside are varied. The main method of infection with parasites is fecal-oral. It is associated with the penetration of helminths along with food and water. People simply swallow invisible organisms when they forget to wash their hands before eating. Worms in the feces are rarely seen with the naked eye. But flies circling over the excrement always carry their eggs. If the insect sits down on a piece of food, then the chances of infection increase significantly.
Worms in humans appear after working without gloves with earth, sand. In the latter case, young children are more likely to suffer from parasites, for whom the sandbox is a favorite place to play. On the surface of the soil, helminths fall along with the feces of animals - cats, dogs, livestock, and are carried by flies. They penetrate into the human body through unwashed hands, microtraumas on the skin, and insufficiently processed vegetables. Inhaling street dust saturated with very tenacious larvae can also become infected.
Another factor contributing to the appearance of worms is the use of poor quality water. It is highly undesirable to swallow the liquid while swimming in the sea, river or lake. It contains a huge number of parasites from the feces of fish, waterfowl, and domestic animals. Human consumption of raw fish and meat threatens to become infected and parasites - bovine, pork tapeworm, broad tapeworm - will settle in the body. In medical reference books, there are photos of worms, the length of which reaches several meters.
Symptoms and signs of helminthic invasion
Becoming hosts of parasites, people begin to lose weight quickly, feel exhausted, look pale. Indicate the presence of worms:
- body aches;
- painful sensations in the joints;
- general weakness;
- loss of appetite;
- diarrhea or constipation;
- bouts of nausea.
But in order to make sure that helminths are present in the body, it is necessary to undergo an examination. It will help identify worms in the stool or specific antibodies in the blood.
Symptoms are worse in the absence of timely treatment. Depending on which worms prevail in the body, the places of their accumulation will differ in signs of ailment. Bile stasis occurs when the ducts are blocked by parasites. A person feels heaviness and soreness in the right hypochondrium, bitterness in the mouth. Periodically tormented by bouts of nausea, constipation.
Many worms secrete substances that irritate the intestinal walls - diarrhea appears, in which the feces are watery, foaming. In addition to this, the patient has increased gas production, loud rumbling in the abdomen, pain in the navel.
Worms, once in the human body, are able to migrate. Their progress is accompanied by severe pain. Most often, a patient with helminthiasis thinks that he has an exacerbation of arthritis. In fact, unpleasant sensations with worms are the body's response to tissue injury.
A person experiences a state of apathy, a deterioration in the ability to concentrate, memory problems. This happens if parasites are present in the body for a long time. There is a previously unusual allergy, intolerance to the body of some products. Worms are the culprit for skin problems. The most common:
- acne, pimples all over the body;
- urticaria, atopic dermatitis, eczema;
- formation of wrinkles too early;
- hair loss, bald patches.
More frequent rhinitis, bronchitis, asthma, pneumonia may well be caused by the migration of worms with the bloodstream. Sometimes parasites settle in the lungs, lay eggs there, which mature and turn into full-fledged individuals. On X-ray images, scans obtained after tomography, worms look like focal darkening of a round or oval shape.
The release of toxic waste products from helminths into the bloodstream makes people complain about:
- constant anxiety, irritability;
- depression;
- insomnia.
Both obesity and underweight are common symptoms of worms. Digestive problems, intoxication lead to poor appetite. A person loses body weight. Prolonged presence of parasites is the reason for a decrease in blood glucose levels and a constant feeling of hunger. At the cellular level, there is a lack of nutrients, which is compensated by the accumulation of adipose tissue.
Drug therapy
Treating helminthiasis without prior consultation with a specialist is not recommended for several reasons. The first is that even after passing feces for analysis several times, it is not always possible to identify parasites. To determine exactly what kind of worms have settled in a person, you will have to do a more detailed examination, including:
- complete blood count with leukoformula;
- biochemical blood test (liver function tests);
- analysis of feces and rectal mucus.
Sometimes, in order to detect the worms that have infested the body, it is necessary to examine bile, sputum, and small sections of the skin.
It is a dubious undertaking to independently treat worms in an adult or a child. Pharmacological preparations are quite toxic. At the same time, many of them have an action directed against a particular species, without affecting others.
If, according to the test results, worms in a person's feces were detected or the presence of parasites was confirmed by other diagnostic procedures, the infectious disease doctor selects the most effective drug. The doctor who prescribes the pills should indicate exactly how many times the medicine will have to be taken and its dose, based on the patient's weight. Treatment of worms is carried out:
- Albendazole;
- Paraziquantel;
- Medamin;
- Mebendazole;
- Pirantel.
The procedure for getting rid of worms is supplemented with drugs that remove intoxication (sorbents), antiallergic drugs, vitamins.
Preventive measures
Given that worms are very easily transmitted from animals or an infected person, every effort should be made to prevent their appearance. To do this, you must strictly adhere to hygiene. An important factor of protection against worms is the correct preparation of the products from which food is prepared.
Doctors recommend an annual prophylactic procedure to cleanse worms in spring and autumn. Even if there are no obvious symptoms of infection in a person. To achieve its maximum effectiveness is obtained if all family members take the remedy recommended by the doctor. Most of the parasites are so small that you can only see a photo of the eggs of some worms, made through a powerful microscope when examining feces, another biomaterial.