Worms in humans, the symptoms and treatment of which are prompted by a doctor, are provoked in the human body by two types of worms - round (nematodes) and flat (flukes and tapeworms). Each of the parasites causes significant damage to the body, especially if proper treatment is not provided in a timely manner.
Be sure to wash your hands when you get home, and also rinse vegetables or fruits under a stream of warm or hot water, as parasite eggs are likely to be found on them. Products such as fish meat or beef must definitely be subjected to heat treatment. Under the action of high temperatures, the meat is rid of the eggs of various helminths and can be suitable for eating.
Varieties of roundworms
Pinworms are small parasitic flatworms of off-white color that cause enterobiasis.
Such parasites enter the human body in the following ways:
- alimentary (through the oral cavity);
- through unwashed/dirty hands.
Pinworm eggs can be found in unwashed fruit or vegetables, or in the fur of a sick animal. Children who scratch itchy areas of skin and then swallow eggs (eg, along with contaminated food) are more likely to contract enterobiosis. It takes two weeks for pinworm larvae to develop around the digestive tract, and when fully developed, a full-fledged worm lives in all parts of the colon.
Trichinella - these parasites have round bodies no more than 5 mm long and excite trichinosis in the body. Larvae and eggs are preferably found in poorly roasted meat (wild boar, pork, bear meat). In the human body, Trichinella takes up to 4 days to become an adult and its life cycle is 40 days. The main purpose of this type of worms is to enter the bloodstream through the intestinal walls and lodge in the muscles. In addition, the muscles of the respiratory tract and the musculoskeletal system are often affected.
Roundworms are representatives of large sizes with a red-yellow spindle shape. Males of this species reach a size of 15-25 cm, and females - up to 40 cm. Their body is devoid of adaptations for fixation in the intestines, they simply move independently through the intestines to the food mass.
You can become infected with roundworms by swallowing ripe eggs, on which the smallest particles of earth remain, when eating unwashed vegetables or fruits. After the eggs get inside the body, they hatch into adult larvae that terrorize the intestinal walls. Parasites can reach the heart muscle and later the lungs via the bloodstream.
Only with this does the cycle of travel through the body not end, as the larva moves through the respiratory tract into the mouth.
By swallowing the parasite again, the body already creates a favorable environment for its development.
The route of an adult worm is through the small intestine. Their life cycle is 12 months, after which they die and are excreted in the feces.
Vlasoklavy - worms in humans, the symptoms and treatment of which are determined at any time after infection, preferring to live directly in the intestine. This worm eats the blood component or feeds on the intestinal mucosa.
Females lay eggs directly on the walls of the affected organ, then they come out along with feces and develop in environmental conditions. An already mature larva, the body of which is elongated and does not exceed the limits of 5-15 mm. enters the human body alimentary.
These parasites have round bodies no more than 5 millimeters long and excite trichinosis in the body. Larvae with eggs can be found in poorly fried meat (wild boar, pork, bear meat).
In the human body, it takes a maximum of 4 days for Trichinella to become an adult, and its life cycle does not exceed 40 days. The main purpose of this type of worms is to enter the bloodstream through the intestinal walls and lodge in the muscles. In addition, the muscles of the respiratory tract and the musculoskeletal system are often affected.
Necator/hookworm. The connection between these parasites is direct, related to the ailments and biological signs they cause. They live in the duodenum and move freely in their environment due to their small size (10-15 mm).
Larvae can enter the body through the skin only if a person has been in contact with contaminated soil. In addition to the digestive tract, another target of the worms is the lungs. They only feed on the blood that comes out of the bitten blood vessels. The violent activity of these parasites disrupts blood clotting. Adults consume blood in the range of 0. 1–0. 35 mL per day.
Varieties of flatworms
wide band. The body length of the parasite, which is 10-20 meters, deserves attention.
The parasite comes from freshwater fish and crayfish, the larvae penetrate eggs and fish fillets.
The formation of an adult worm lasts a maximum of 25 days, and then a person falls ill with diphyllobothriasis (the digestive tract is disturbed, B vitamin deficiency).
The liver fluke is a flatworm that reaches 10-20 mm in size, and there is a second name for this parasite - cat fluke. In 50% of cases of infection, local residents who have eaten infected fish (carp, crucian carp, bream, roach) suffer. Fish become infected with liver flukes through an ingested snail that has previously ingested freshwater helminth eggs.
To rid the fish of the parasite, heat treatment is required, otherwise the larvae will get into the internal environment of the body and damage the gallbladder with the intestines. Signs of the acute phase of development of helminthiasis in humans are nausea, vomiting, epigastric pain, allergic reactions, muscle spasms. The parasite causes irreversible changes in the body, and even after its expulsion from the body of patients, all kinds of inflammation and disorders will surely appear.
pork/beef tapeworm. The body length of the parasite is 5-6 meters, and its larvae hide in the flesh of large animals (pork, cattle). The disease caused by these helminths is called teniasis and teniarinhoz.
The larvae of both tapeworm species, the fins, are whitish sacs that adhere to the walls of the small intestine. To reach and form an adult, the parasite takes 3 months, and every day the worm develops. The total number of segments reaches 2000, the last of which allows the colon to "furrow" freely.
Then the worms leave the body along with the feces through the anus. The most common and obvious symptom of helminthiasis is a disturbed digestive tract, as well as eating in large quantities, and the patient does not gain weight visually.
Echinococcus. In this case, a person acts as an intermediate host, because the last are wolves, cats, dogs. Animals can become infected through direct contact with contaminated objects or people. Once the parasite's eggs enter the intestine, six-hook larvae, called oncospheres in medicine, immediately develop.
The worm's preferred habitat is the lungs and liver, and the larva grows into a hydatid cyst that increases in size. All nearby tissues are subject to rapid destruction.
Doctors often do not recognize echinococcosis, confusing it with a malignant or benign formation. In addition to squeezing blood vessels and internal organs, ruptures of Echinococcus cysts are common.
When this happens, not only does toxic shock immediately occur in the body, but a ruptured cyst provokes the formation of several new cysts.
The last type of parasites are alveococci, in the medical literature they are called echinococci. It is this worm that causes a terrible disease that causes damage comparable to cancer and cirrhosis of the liver. Worm oncospheres enter the intestine, then the embryos hatch from the eggs and begin to destroy the intestinal walls. After the walls are drilled, the parasite enters the bloodstream and spreads throughout the body.
Most often, as already mentioned, alveococci terrorize the liver, where the larva gradually grows. In the process of development, the larvocyst is formed in the worms - an aggressive formation that is rapidly increasing in size (a gradually growing multi-chamber vesicle). These vesicles get into the liver cells according to the same principle as cancer metastases.
Nearby tissues feel a disruption in blood flow, and later necrotic changes appear in them. Fibrous knots with such multi-chamber bubbles form on nearby structures and can remain in the human body for several years. For this reason, when detecting this parasite, doctors resort to surgical intervention.
note
Modern science knows about 280 species of worms. It is these microorganisms that can parasitize and develop in a wide variety of tissues and organs of the human body.
Every year in humans, these worms, whose symptoms and treatment are determined by the doctor, infect the organs and tissues of about 15 million people, and most, in fact, 80% of them are children.
How to get worms:
- The use of meat dishes with poor heat treatment or raw meat in general. So, beef is the habitat of the tapeworm, and pork carries the pig's tapeworm.
- Eating infected fish in lightly salted or raw form. River water is often contaminated with helminth larvae.
- Water can also cause worms. This is due to the fact that a person can drink raw water or wash food and dishes with contaminated water. The risk is particularly high outdoors.
- The soil can also cause the appearance of worms. Because it may contain animal or human feces. But how do worms get into the human body? The answer is simple - from unwashed hands after working in the garden or during outdoor recreation.
In addition, you can become infected through direct contact with a person suffering from helminthiasis. That is, infection occurs through dishes, laundry, or personal care items.
If the case is completely neglected, and the parasitic infection is in the acute phase of its development, doctors prescribe detoxification and desensitization therapy. And if the disease is very difficult, then glucocorticoids are prescribed.
It speaks for a specific therapy, takes into account the type of pathogen and includes special chemotherapeutic agents with an anthelmintic character.
In addition, patients are advised to take various antihistamines. At the end of the treatment you need to take probiotics. All this is necessary to restore the intestinal microflora. During treatment, the patient must follow a special diet consisting of easily digestible foods with a minimum fat content.
At the time of therapy, it is very important to ensure proper personal hygiene, otherwise there is a risk of reinfection.
In addition, all family members, as well as other people who were in constant and close contact with the patient, should undergo anthelmintic treatment.
Signs of worms in humans: Symptoms in children and adults
Signs of worms in humans, the symptoms of which can be the same, can be observed in a sharp form in both adults and children:
- Unreasonable increase in appetite and profuse salivation, and at the same time the weight is rapidly decreasing.
- Another variant of the development of symptoms can also occur - appetite disappears, after eating the person feels sick.
- Perhaps the appearance of headaches and dizziness.
- Loose stools or constipation can also indicate the presence of worms.
- Pain in the stomach.
- Sudden onset of an allergy with incomprehensible symptoms.
- Weakening of hair and nails (their brittleness increases due to a lack of iron and vitamin B12).
- Due to the weakening of the immune system, various inflammations occur in the nasopharynx and in the genital area.
When the body is heavily infected with worms, a large amount of toxic substances that appear due to the vital activity of helminths are released into the human blood. This circumstance can seriously affect the health of the child. First of all, the nervous system suffers. Therefore, if a child shows sudden aggression, irritability, insomnia and other signs of nervous disorders, the child should be examined for the presence of helminths.
Even in the absence of pronounced signs and functional disorders, worms can be present in the human body and it is necessary to conduct regular tests to identify them.
Very often it happens that after preventive vaccinations, a child develops an allergic reaction due to the presence in the body of toxic substances secreted by helminths.
In fact, it is quite a difficult task to determine whether worms are present or not based on superficial signs alone. After all, the symptoms shown can be a sign of another disease. This task is especially difficult for pregnant women. Since all of the above signs of worms in humans, the symptoms of which were described above, appear in pregnant women due to the process itself.
That is why signs of helminth infection in pregnant women can be distinguished by such symptoms: itching of the anus and burning sensation in the vaginal area, increasing at night, weight loss, fatigue, fever.
To diagnose helminth infection, a number of measures are performed, including the following procedures:
- Taking an anamnesis to identify possible sources of infection.
- The laboratory examination of fecal and blood samples, rectal and perianal mucus, muscle tissue, sputum and bile. When conducting these activities, signs of the presence of helminths in the body (eggs or the worms themselves, as well as their parts) can be detected. It is also worth noting that an increased number of eosinophils can serve as a sign of the presence of worms in the body.
- Serological studies (ELISA, RSK, etc. ) allow the detection of larval or helminth stage parasites living in muscle tissues.
- To determine the presence of parasites affecting the liver, ultrasound, CT and endoscopy are prescribed.
Worms in the human liver: symptoms by worm type
Worms in the human liver, the symptoms of which largely depend on the type of worms, can also migrate to other organs.
The appearance of primary signs of infection with worms does not appear immediately. The timing of the appearance of distinctive features depends in many ways on the species composition of the parasites. So, the presence of Ascaris in almost two to three days is manifested by a deterioration in the general condition of a person.
In most cases, the first symptoms of infection with other helminth species do not appear until two to three weeks after the end of the incubation period. There are such parasites (for example, filariasis) in which the incubation period exceeds half a year.
The problem with determining the presence of helminths in the human body is that in the case of primary infection with a small number of worms or a single individual, there are practically no visual signs. Symptoms appear only after intensive reproduction of helminths or when they reach large sizes (broad tapeworm, roundworm).
The most reliable way to detect infection with pinworms. In their presence, a characteristic itching appears in the anus, which intensifies at night. Generally, the itchiness occurs within a few days, then subsides for about two weeks and then resumes.
When infected with helminths such as trichuriasis, ankylostomidoses, schistosomiasis, diphyllobothriasis, beriberi and anemia develop.
The appearance of symptoms of infection with roundworms largely depends on the development time of the parasites. So, when they are at the initial stage of development, the larvae move through the blood to almost all internal organs and the following symptoms of the disease appear: subfebrile temperature, weakness, cough with purulent sputum, fleeting infiltrates are visible on x-rays the lungs, which subsequentlydisappear.
With severe infection, bronchitis and pneumonia can develop. With the further development of parasites, there is a violation of the functions of the gastrointestinal tract.
Trichinosis - manifested mainly by pain in muscle tissue, fever and swelling.
Such worms in the human liver, the symptoms of which are manifested by an icteric complexion, such as fascioliasis, opisthorchiasis, clonorchiasis, indicate their presence with an increase in the spleen and liver and other serious diseases of the body.
Almost all types of worms cause disorders of the central nervous system, while the sick person feels severe headaches and fatigue, a generally calm person becomes irritable and impatient, and unreasonable attacks of aggression may occur.