One of the varieties of worms that parasitize in the human body are worms or, in other words, helminths. These parasites have an amazing ability to live and multiply extremely rapidly in a wide variety of internal organs: liver and kidneys, brain and muscle tissue, eyes and intestines.
Much to our regret, many of us simply underestimate the danger and severity of these parasites, while worm diseases are found in different parts of the planet. That is why such a topic as worms - symptoms in adult patients are extremely important to everyone.
Worms: causes and types
Many of us think that in order not to get worms, it is enough to wash our hands more frequently and follow general hygiene rules. But it's not like that. Almost 70% of the world's population are carriers of helminths.
It is quite difficult to detect the presence of worms in the body of an adult if you are not a doctor specialized in this field of medicine. This is due to the fact that the disease has practically no obvious symptoms or signs.
There are several of the most common signs that can indicate that parasites have appeared in the body:
- A person tires quickly, often showing aggression and anger for no apparent reason. Patients are often severely depressed. These people do not sleep well or suffer from insomnia.
- In the abdomen of the patient, pain, discomfort and noise, bloating and flatulence are often manifested. Sick people lose their appetite and lose weight quickly. Or perhaps vice versa: patients have an excessively strong appetite and cannot get enough food. Constipation or diarrhea are common.
- Due to the fact that helminths feed on the blood of their "owner", the patient often develops symptoms such as anemia or anemia.
- Carriers of helminths often suffer from all kinds of rashes on the surface of the skin or mucous membranes, and they also develop various allergic reactions.
If a person manifests at least one of these signs, this should alert him and generate an urgent appeal to a medical institution.
The main route of entry of helminths into the body is the gastrointestinal tract, along with food or drink. Parasitologists distinguish the following main forms of parasite infestation:
- Helminthiasis. Parasites enter the patient's body through drink or soil. This can be direct contact with animals or ingestion of fly eggs deposited on food or fruits and vegetables.
- Contact. This route of infection by parasites is probably due to contact with an already infected person.
- Biohelminthiasis. In this case, the parasites enter the body due to the consumption of undercooked meat of animals, poultry or fish.
- Insect bites. Mosquitoes are one of the most common carriers of worms. At the same time 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 fecal-oral (with food and water).
The human body is a fairly complex mechanism that has some specific barriers that prevent helminths from entering and developing in the body.
One of the first barriers is saliva, which contains many different enzymes. It is these enzymes that have a unique ability to adversely affect the vast majority of types of worms.
If the worms still managed to survive, they penetrate 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 parasite species. Furthermore, the natural intestinal immunity of humans should not be underestimated.
Gut microflora, enzymes, globules - these are those tireless worm fighters. It is these natural barriers that are designed to protect our body from parasites. But, as soon as this armor weakens, our body begins to be actively attacked by various types of worms.
To know exactly how to deal with parasites, you need to know their varieties and characteristics. Classifying worms, there are three main main groups:
- Intestinal worms. Representatives of this group are also called nematodes and have more than 24 thousand species of parasites. A distinctive feature of roundworms is their shape, which has a round cross section. They have a long, elongated body, both ends pointed. Among the most common varieties of this type of parasite are roundworms, whipworms, pinworms and whipworms.
- You had. Among the most distinctive characteristics of the life cycle of this type of parasites is the fact that they have an intermediate "host", which is an animal or a fish. Eating raw or undercooked fish or animal meat has a nearly 100% chance of getting tapeworms. The most common representatives of this species are the broad tapeworm, the bovine tapeworm, the dwarf tapeworm, etc.
- PacifiersRepresentatives of this group have a flat, leaf-shaped body, up to 1. 5 - 2 m long. At one end of the stem there are two suction cups, with the help of which the parasites adhere to the substrate. As a rule, flukes affect the intestines, muscle tissue, or the human nervous system.
Diagnosis of worms in humans
It is quite difficult to determine the presence of worms in the body of an adult. This is due to the fact that the symptoms of helminthiasis (headache, poor appetite, fever, dysfunction of the gastrointestinal tract, etc. ) are quite similar to the symptoms of other diseases.
Also, quite often the symptoms of the presence of helminths in the patient's body are a banal allergy. Often, there are cases when 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: symptoms in adults, treatment, an issue that has preoccupied our society for over a hundred years. One of the most common and widely used methods for determining helminthiasis in adults is testing the stool for helminth eggs.
Unfortunately, the percentage of effectiveness of 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 lies in the fact that specialists do not take into account such a fact as the period of egg-laying by worms. As an example, consider roundworms. They lay eggs mainly in the morning (4 to 5 hours). This means that stool taken for analysis at night will not show the presence of worm eggs in it.
Often times, parasitologists use a method such as enterobiasis. The essence of this technique is that a scraping 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 show 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 experts use a specially designed test, answering the questions of which it is possible to establish about 50% of the development of helminthiasis in a patient. Here are the questions for this test:
- Do you feel itchy in the anus?
- If there is a rash on the skin.
- Do you feel nauseous in the morning?
- Do you suffer from sleep disorders?
- Do you have bitterness in your mouth?
- Are your lymph nodes swollen?
- Do you notice pain in the area of the muscles?
If the patient gives a positive answer to 7 questions, this may indicate the presence of helminths in the body of an adult.
Modern medicine suggests using a method such as testing with an ultraviolet skin scanner. Unfortunately, this method of diagnosing helminthiasis is not used often. This is due to the fact that the equipment to perform it (ultraviolet skin scanner) is quite expensive and not all medical institutions can afford to buy it.
It is possible to determine the presence in the feces of a person not only of worm cysts, but also of parts of the body from him, using such a method as a histological coprogram. The essence of this method is to examine several layers of stool under an electron microscope. This method allows parasitologists to obtain the most accurate results.
To determine the presence of worms in the patient's lungs, first of all, doctors prescribe an X-ray, as well as a laboratory examination of the patient's sputum.
By using CT or ultrasound, parasitologists can easily determine the presence of parasites in patient 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 give positive results, but only aggravates the clinical picture and the general condition of the patient.
The most effective drugs for the treatment of different types of worms.
Worms in adults, symptoms and treatment: These two concepts are closely related to each other and have a direct relationship.
The process of treating helminthiasis is quite a difficult task. For example, some diseases caused by helminths are similar to cancer, such as alveococcosis. Other types of diseases caused by tapeworms or echinococci can only be treated with surgery.
The third type of disease cannot be treated with pills. The correctly chosen method of treatment depends on how well the type of parasites that have settled in the body of an adult has been established.
The complexity of the treatment lies in the fact that anthelmintic drugs destroy only adults, and the larvae and eggs remain in the human body and continue to parasitize there.
All drugs that are used to destroy worms can be conditionally subdivided into the following groups:
- Mebendazole including means. This group of drugs is most often used in the treatment of diseases such as ascariasis, taeniasis, echinococcosis, alveococcosis, capillary cocosis, helminthiasis of mixed type, 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 eye tissues.
- Means, the active substance of which is levamisole. Such means are generally used to treat non-kotorosis, enterobiasis, trichostrogillosis, whipworm, etc.
- Preparations that include Albendazole. It is used primarily for the treatment of 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 achieve a positive treatment it is necessary to contact a medical professional whose specialization is parasitology. Also, a prerequisite for treatment is strict adherence to the recommendations of doctors.
Parasites of the human body such as worms are extremely dangerous to human health. In order for the treatment process to be the most effective, parasitologists are doing their best to determine as precisely as possible to which species the parasites that have settled on the patient's body belong.
To destroy the worms, doctors use a fairly large list of drugs. But self-medication is not recommended in any way. For the treatment of helminthiasis, separate treatment regimens, dosage, and course duration are being developed. It is recommended to strictly follow the instructions of parasitologists.