Tapeworms in humans - symptoms

A Long Living Parasite

Tapeworms are one of the possible parasites able to have humans as their hosts. Namely, they can get into your organism if you ate food containing their eggs. Pork, beef and fish are the usual egg carriers. After getting into their host, the eggs may develop inside intestines, or outside, in the tissue area of the body. The outer ones then form cysts while the tapeworms inside our intestines tend to develop fully and live up to 20 years if the conditions allow. While inside the body, tapeworms lay eggs and grow, possibly inhabiting a human organism for most of its life. Finally, even though intestinal parasites of this type tend not to cause serious health problems, those outside this area may even belife-threatening.

Manifestations of Tapeworm Infection

Unfortunately, this condition is very hard to be diagnosed. Due to the mildness of its symptoms, it is often considered to be something else, like a small stomach issue triggered by stress or something similar. Therefore, tapeworms are usually discovered accidentally. One of the main indicators, however, may be parts of these parasites found in one's bowel movement product. Nevertheless, this only goes for the intestinal ones. The tapeworms outside your intestines are much harder to locate and people remain unaware of their presence until severe symptoms appear.

As for the intestinal tapeworms, their presence manifests through nausea, loss of appetite, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and physical weakness. You may also experience inability to properly digest and absorb food. On the other hand, the second type of this parasite infections usually damages some of our organs and tissue structure, having more severe symptoms. Fever, seizures or allergic reactions may all be triggered by their presence. Moreover, bacterial infections may cause cystic lumps to appear somewhere inside the body. The infection may spread to a person's brain causing numerous dysfunctions and possibly death.

Possible Treatment

The best treatment is prevention. Therefore, being careful while around live stock, paying attention to personal hygiene and making sure you are eating sufficiently cooked food, all these act as excellent means of precaution.

In case you do end up with a tapeworm infection, after being properly diagnosed, this condition is easily treated by several types of drugs your doctor may prescribe you.

All in all, it is best to avoid suffering from this condition by simply following the prevention measures mentioned above. You also need to test your pets and livestock for tapeworms, removing them if they are present. Also, keep the places where your animals spend time clean and free of feces, since unhygienic conditions present excellent breeding ground for these parasites.