Would You Recognize These Dangerous Parasitic Infestations?

Parasites — organisms that satisfy their needs at the expense of their hosts, often with very serious consequences — comes in many shapes and sizes. These parasites literally make your skin crawl, feed on your body, or silently damage your health while they're gestating. Keep your eye out for these fellows!

Hookworm

Up to 740 million people are infected with hookworm, an intestinal parasite, worldwide. Other mammals, such as dogs and cats, can also be hosts. Infection usually occurs after someone comes into close contact with the fecal matter of someone who already had hookworm — due to poor sanitary conditions or because feces were used as a fertilizer. Mature female hookworms are real egg factories, as some release up to 30,000 a day! These eggs are expelled through feces, and hatch into larvae that will begin their search for another host. 

Fortunately, hookworm infection is quite rare in developed western nations these days. If you don't walk barefoot around communal unsanitary toilets, you're quite unlikely to catch this creep. That's just as well, because the hookworm comes with a large "ick factor": larvae actually penetrate the skin and wiggle all around the body before finding and entering the intestines. Once there, they will hook onto its lining with their creepy teeth.

Hookworm infection does appear to have one redeeming feature, and that's the fact that it frequently remains symptomless in those with a small number of worms. Is that really so great, though? Not if you consider that this parasitic infection can silently wreck your health. People with severe infections may lose their appetite, rapidly lose weight, and suffer abdominal pain, fatigue and anemia. If the infected person is a child, their physical development can be impacted dramatically. Thankfully, hookworm can be eliminated with medication quite easily.

What? Yes, "helminthic therapy" — in this case a voluntary hookworm infection — is an alternative remedy that's gaining popularity. Crohn's Disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Ulcerative Colititis and asthma are all among conditions for which some people infect themselves with hookworm. These sterile parasites can be ordered off the internet. 

Pork Tapeworm

The pork tapeworm is made up of long, flat segments. It tends to be between two and three meters long, but can reach up to eight meters in some cases! A hermaphrodite, the pork tapeworm doesn't require a mate to reproduce and instead practices self-fertilization within more mature segments of its body. Eggs, expelled through feces, are ingested by the host and then reach their next developmental stage: oncospheres. These wind up in muscles, entering the bloodstream and looking for intestines once they are developed enough, and growing into mature worms. 

See Also: Intestinal Infections with Tapeworm Parasites

An intestinal tapeworm infection can seriously harm your health — think anemia, nutritional deficiencies, fatigue, abdominal pain, a general feeling of weakness, diarrhea, and other symptoms. That's bad enough in itself, but pork tapeworms can also end up in other organs, including the eyes, liver and brain, instead. Cysts are a normal part of the worm's life cycle, and they can be life-threatening when they gestate in the brain. This is a common cause of seizures in some developing countries. "Pork tapeworm on the brain" can also cause headaches, back pain, confusion, and fluid build-up in the brain, along with other neurological symptoms and even death. Anti-parasitical medication, anti-inflammatory drugs and surgery may be part of the treatment plan in this case. Meanwhile, steer clear of undercooked pork!

More Parasites You Wish Didn't Exist

Acanthamoeba

Do you wear contact lenses? All lens wearers are familiar with their opticians' instructions to always rinse and store their contacts in lens fluid. Different types of contact lens solutions all come with their own pros and cons, but they have one thing in common: they're supposed to keep your lenses clean and free from pathogens that can damage your eyes. Despite very clear instructions to use only professional products, most lens wearers have used water at some point. I know I have — when you're out and about and have something in your eye, lens fluid just isn't always available. 

Whenever this has happened to me, I have used bottled mineral water rather than tap water when at all possible. Tap water stings! You are probably aware of the fact that it can cause an inflammation too. But have you heard of acanthamoeba? Since I know about this creepy amoeba, I make very sure I always carry lens solution with me!

Acanthamoeba is frequently present in tap water. Get it in your eye, and you'll notice inflammation, blurred vision, sensitivity, redness, and the feeling something is in your eye — because something is in your eye! Though acanthamoeba keratitis can be treated, some people end up needing a cornea transplant, going blind, and even using their eyeball. 

Myiasis 

People who are around farm animals, especially sheep, will be familiar with myiasis. Myiasis is a condition in which fly larvae — yes, that's maggots! — live subcutaneously, feeding on the tissue around them. Many different flies cause myiasis. Some lay eggs near an open wound, while others just deposit eggs on intact skin in moist areas of the body. Once the eggs hatch, the maggots burrow their own way into the skin. Some flies have different tactics and wait for eggs to be ingested with food or may attach their eggs to mosquitoes, which will then deliver them to the victim.

Myiasis is a huge problem for sheep farmers worldwide, but it can also affect humans in tropical and subtropical regions. Regardless of the mode of infestation, a bump will be the first sign of trouble. People who don't live in warm areas are highly unlikely to suspect maggots are crawling under their skin. Since the maggots often burrow into the skin on the foot, victims will probably assume they stepped in something and are now dealing with an infection. Until, that is, they feel things moving under the skin and eventually see the maggots themselves.

See Also: Parasites In Cat Poop, Public Health Menace?

Maggots crawling in your skin may be your worst nightmare. You may still be relieved to hear that they usually stay under the skin, rather than migrating all over the body. People who have suspicious bumps after traveling to tropical or subtropical areas should definitely seek medical attention. Myiasis is removed surgically, a procedure that's followed up by meticulous after care.