Tapeworms in Humans - Symptoms

After your kid has just had a bowel movement and you are about to help the kid flush, you notice something out of the blue. You notice a large slippery worm down the toilet bowl! Well, you have just had a first hand experience of an extremely rare tapeworm in humans symptom. Tapeworms are intestinal worms that reside in your intestines and can survive for years in your body without you ever noticing anything amiss.

What is Human Tapeworm Infection?

A tapeworm infection is an intestinal parasite infection. The tapeworm infection is presence of live tapeworms in the intestine. Most of the time, tapeworm infections are not serious and if no proper treatment is given, it may cause the worm to penetrate the intestine walls. Thus, the worm can easily spread to other organs of the human body. A tapeworm infection can also be called cestodiasis.

Tapeworms are a group of parasitic worms that live in the intestinal tract of certain animals. A tapeworm has segmented body, with each segment capable of producing eggs. These eggs are either dispersed individually or in groups of segments by detachment. Each of this segment may pass out with stool. These segments from beef tapeworm have the ability to move. They can actively crawl out of the anus.

Tapeworms are caused by consumption of contaminated food and water. Most of the time, tapeworms gain entry into human intestines by eating undercooked pork and beef that are contaminated with tapeworm eggs or larvae. Tapeworms can survive for over 20 years in your intestine and reach well over 50 feet in length. Before we move on to tapeworm in human symptoms, let us learn a bit about the types of tapeworms.

Types

There are about 6 types of different tapeworms that infect humans. These are as follows:

• Beef tapeworm (Taemia saginata): The beef tapeworm can reach a length of about 25 feet inside the human intestine.
• Pork tapeworm (Taenia solium): The pork tapeworm can grow about 21 feet in length inside the human intestine.
• Fish Tapeworm (Diphyllobothrium latum ): The fish tapeworm reaches a size of 25 feet in length in human intestine.
• Rodent tapeworm (Hymenolepis nana)
• Dog tapeworm (Dipylidium caninum): This tapeworm grows to a length of 24 inches.
• Dwarf tapeworm (Hymenolepis nana): This the smallest of all worms and can grow up to 12 inches in the intestine.

Symptoms

Many people who are infected with tapeworm, never know most of their lives that they have an unwelcome guest living in their guts. This is because most of them do not exhibit any of the tapeworm symptoms. However, some of the common tapeworms in human symptoms are as follows:

• Weakness
• Nausea
• Loss of appetite
• Pain in the stomach
• Diarrhea
• Weight loss
• Inability to absorb nutrients from food.

These common symptoms of tapeworms can affect the person's overall health and life quality. Many times the tapeworm symptoms in humans can become severe and cause many other problems. Tapeworms or larvae migrating from the intestine may cause the formation of cysts in other body tissues. These severe symptoms may include:

• Overt cystic formation
• Mass or lump formation
• Fever
• Inflammation of intestines
• Dizziness
• Vitamin deficiency
• Insomnia
• Anemia
• Bacterial infections
• Allergic reaction to larvae
• Sometimes even seizures may occur

In case of larval infection, there are different symptoms that may be observed. The larvae is small in size and can travel along the blood stream to different parts of the body. These symptoms include:

• Abdominal pain
• Fever
• Coughing
• Pain in the lungs
• Jaundice
• Seizures
• Blindness
• Feeling of pressure within the skull

Sometimes, one may even notice tapeworm eggs or tapeworm body in their stools. This is because they live in the intestine and can easily move out of the anus during bowel movement. But, this does not mean the entire tapeworm may wiggle out of the body. Most of the time the tapeworms head remains within the body and it regrows in length over time.

Diagnosis

Tapeworms in human diagnosis includes a blood test and a stool test. In case of blood test, elevated levels of eosinophils, vitamin B12 deficiency and presence of large pale red blood cells indicates the presence of tapeworm in humans. In a stool test, the tapeworm is detected using a microscope.

Treatment

Most of the time, the doctor may advise you with anthelmintics like niclosamide and praziquantel as tapeworms in human treatment. These drugs are very successful in eliminating tapeworms. The tapeworms are shed from the body with stools within 48 hours of taking the drugs. Sometimes, the doctor may advice a gentle laxative after a dose of anthelmintics to get rid of the segments of killed tapeworms from the intestine.

It is very important to ask your doctor for a suitable tapeworms in human cure. Most people never require tapeworm in human treatment, as the parasite exits out of the body on its own. However, in some rare cases it may lead to complications depending on the type of tapeworm infection. In case of intestinal tapeworm infections, the tapeworm may grow very large and clock your bile duct, appendix or pancreatic duct. This may lead to organ problems.

Other complication may include the invasive pork tapeworm infections causing neurocysticercosis. This may lead to headaches, visual impairment, meningitis, hydrocephalus or even dementia. In severe infections, it may lead to death. Larvae forming cysts in different body organs may lead to disruption of organ functions. It may also cause rupture of cysts and cause pressure on nearby blood vessels. In severe cases, one may require surgery or organ transplantation.

It is generally seen that the prognosis of tapeworms in human is generally good. A tapeworm in human cure is termed successful, if no segments are found in stool after 4 months of initial treatment. Many individuals never experience any kind of tapeworms in human symptoms. However, it is always wise to be a bit alert, as you do not want an unwelcome guest to make a comfortable home in your guts.