One of the varieties of worms that parasitize in the human body are worms or, in other words, helminths. These parasites have an incredible ability to live and multiply extremely quickly in a wide variety of internal organs: liver and kidneys, brain and muscle tissue, eyes and intestines.
To our great regret, many of us simply underestimate the danger and seriousness of these parasites, while diseases caused by worms are found in different parts of the planet. That's why a topic like worms: symptoms in adult patients are extremely important for everyone.
Worms: causes and types
Many of us think that in order not to get infected with worms, just wash your hands more often and follow general hygiene rules. But it's not like that. Almost 70% of the world population are helminth carriers.
It is very difficult to detect the presence of worms in an adult's body if you are not a doctor who specializes in this area of medicine. This is because the disease has practically no obvious signs and symptoms.
There are several of the most common signs that may indicate that the parasites have appeared in the body:
- A person tires quickly, often shows aggression and anger for no apparent reason. Patients are often severely depressed. These people do not sleep well or suffer from insomnia.
- In the patient's abdomen, pain and discomfort and snoring, swelling and flatulence are frequently manifested. Sick people lose their appetite and lose weight quickly. Or maybe vice versa - patients have an excessively strong appetite and cannot eat enough. Constipation or diarrhea are common.
- Because helminths feed on the blood of their "owner", the patient usually develops symptoms such as anemia or anemia.
- Helminth carriers often suffer from all types of rashes on the skin or mucous membranes and also develop various allergic reactions.
If a person exhibits at least one of these signs, this should alert them and cause an urgent appeal to a medical institution.
The main route of entry for helminths into the body is the gastrointestinal tract, along with food or drink. Parasitologists distinguish the following main forms of parasite infestation:
- Helminthiasis. The parasites enter the patient's body through drink or the soil. This could be direct contact with animals or ingesting fly eggs placed in food or fruits and vegetables.
- Contact. This route of infection by parasites is likely to occur through contact with an already infected person.
- Biohelminthiasis. In this case, the parasites enter the body due to consumption of undercooked meat from animals, birds or fish.
- Insect bites. Mosquitoes are one of the most common transmitters of worms. At the same time that it bites a sick and healthy person, the mosquito infects the second with worms.
From the above, it follows that there are many ways that can cause worm infection. But one of the most common and dangerous methods is the fecal-oral (with food and water).
The human body is a very complex mechanism that has some specific barriers that prevent the entry and development of helminths in the body.
One of the first barriers is saliva, which contains many different enzymes. It is these enzymes that have the unique ability to adversely affect the vast majority of types of worms.
If the worms still survive, they enter the stomach. But even here a rather unpleasant surprise awaits them - hydrochloric acid and various enzymes that have all the necessary properties to destroy a large number of species of parasites. Furthermore, the natural intestinal immunity of humans should not be underestimated.
Gut microflora, enzymes, blood cells - these are those tireless fighters against worms. It is these natural barriers that protect our bodies from parasites. But as soon as this armor weakens, our bodies begin to be actively attacked by various types of worms.
To know exactly how to deal with parasites, it is necessary to know their varieties and characteristics. Classifying worms, there are three main groups:
- Roundworms. Representatives of this group are also called nematodes and have more than 24, 000 species of parasites. A distinctive feature of roundworms is their shape, which is round in cross section. They have a long, elongated body, both ends are pointed. Among the most common varieties of this type of parasite are roundworm, moth, moth and trichina.
- Tapeworms. Among the most striking characteristics of the life cycle of this type of parasite is the fact that it has an intermediate "host", which is an animal or fish. Eating undercooked or raw fish or animal meat has an almost 100% chance of getting hookworms. The most common representatives of this species are the wide tapeworm, the bovine tapeworm, the dwarf tapeworm, etc.
- Suckers. The representatives of this group have a flat, leaf-shaped body, with a length of 1, 5 to 2 m. At one end of the stalk there are two suction cups, with the help of which the parasites attach themselves to the substrate. As a rule, worms affect the intestines, muscle tissue or the human nervous system.
Diagnosing worms in humans
It is very difficult to determine the presence of worms in an adult's body. This is because the symptoms of helminthiasis (headache, lack of appetite, fever, gastrointestinal tract dysfunction, etc. ) are quite similar to the symptoms of other diseases.
Furthermore, often the symptoms of the presence of helminths in the patient's body are a common allergy. There are often cases where a parasitologist with a high degree of probability suspects that the patient has worms, laboratory tests do not confirm this, and the patient has been unsuccessfully treated for dysbiosis for a long time.
Worms: adult symptoms, treatment - an issue that has preoccupied our society for over a hundred years. One of the most common and frequently used methods to determine helminthiasis in adults is the analysis of helminth eggs in faeces.
Unfortunately, the percentage of effectiveness for this method is only 20%. And in the remaining 80% of patients, it is not possible to diagnose the presence of helminths in the body. The low efficiency of such an analysis resides in the fact that experts do not take into account a fact such as the period of laying the eggs of earthworms. As an example, consider roundworms. They lay eggs mostly in the morning (4 - 5 hours). This means that stools taken for analysis at night will not show the presence of worm eggs.
Often, parasitologists use a method such as enterobiasis. The essence of this technique is that a scrape is taken from the patient in the anal canal. This method, unfortunately, is not very effective either.
The patient's blood test also does not provide high rates of establishing the presence of helminths. In both cases, the reason is the same - the time of analysis and the period of excretion of the cyst do not coincide.
Some specialists use a specially designed test, answering whose questions it is possible to establish approximately 50% of the development of helminthiasis in a patient. Here are the questions for this test:
- Do you feel itchy anus?
- If there is a rash on the skin.
- You feel nauseous in the morning.
- You are suffering from sleep disorders.
- Do you have bitterness in your mouth?
- Are your lymph nodes swollen?
- Do you notice pain in the muscle area?
If the patient answers 7 questions positively, this could indicate the presence of helminths in an adult's body.
Modern medicine suggests using a method such as testing with an ultraviolet skin scanner. Unfortunately, this method of diagnosing helminthiasis is not often used. This is due to the fact that the equipment used to perform it (ultraviolet skin scanner) is quite expensive and not every medical institution has the financial means to purchase it.
It is possible to determine the presence in a person's stool not only of worm cysts, but also of body parts, through a method such as the histological coprogram. The essence of this method is to examine multiple layers of stool under an electron microscope. This method allows parasitologists to obtain more accurate results.
To determine the presence of worms in the patient's lungs, doctors first prescribe an x-ray as well as a laboratory examination of the patient's sputum.
Using computed tomography or ultrasound, parasitologists can easily determine the presence of parasites in a patient's organs such as the liver or brain.
A complete blood count or immunological tests will help identify the presence of parasites in the patient's blood. To determine if a patient has helminthiasis, specialists use several methods.
Unfortunately, none of them can give the most reliable result. In this sense, there are cases in which the treatment process does not yield positive results, it only aggravates the patient's clinical condition and general condition.
The most effective drugs to treat different types of worms
Worms in adults, symptoms and treatment - these two concepts are closely related and have a direct relationship.
The helminthiasis treatment process is a very difficult task. For example, some diseases caused by helminths are similar to cancer, such as alveococcosis. Other types of illnesses caused by worms or echinococci can only be treated with surgery.
The third type of illness cannot be treated with pills. The correct treatment method chosen depends on how correctly the type of parasites that have settled on an adult's body have been established.
The complexity of the treatment lies in the fact that anthelmintic drugs only destroy adults, and the larva and eggs remain in the human body and continue to parasitize there.
All drugs used to destroy worms can be conditionally subdivided into the following groups:
- Meaning it includes mebendazole. This group of drugs is most frequently used in the treatment of diseases such as ascariasis, taeniasis, echinococcosis, alveococcosis, capillary coccosis, mixed-type helminthiasis, etc.
- Preparations containing diethylcarbamazine. Basically, these funds have shown excellent results in the treatment of diseases that affect the human lymphatic system, the fiber located under the skin and ocular tissues.
- Means, whose active substance is Levamisol. These means are generally used to treat non-kotorosis, enterobiasis, trichoestrogens, trichocephalosis, etc.
- Preparations Including Albendazole. It is mainly used to treat cysticercosis and ascariasis.
In no case should you forget that self-medication is not recommended when helminthiasis is detected. This can lead to complications and worsening of the clinical picture of the disease.
The main reason for this is that most anthelmintic drugs have toxic properties and require a specially designed regimen for their administration.
To obtain a positive treatment, it is necessary to contact a physician specializing in parasitology. Furthermore, a prerequisite for treatment is strict compliance with the doctors' recommendations.
Parasites of the human body, like worms, are extremely dangerous to human health. In order for the treatment process to be as effective as possible, parasitologists are making every effort to determine as precisely as possible to which species the parasites that have settled in the patient's body belong.
To destroy the worms, doctors use a fairly large list of medications. But self-medication is not recommended at all. For the treatment of helminthiasis, separate treatment regimens, dosage and course duration are being developed. It is recommended to strictly follow the instructions of the parasitologists.