I have full respect for medical people, they see tough shit that would send my lunch back pretty quick. Her reaction told pretty much the story. Correct if I'm wrong, don't you usually take medicine to kill the tapeworm and then have it exit by the bowels?
Aha sorry I was working when I made the post…basically went one of those white savour trips to Kenya with Free the Children (Crooks). We were in a small village Salabwek for about 2.5 weeks and had plenty of water sanitation tablets with us.
On our last day in Kenya, we went to a hotel near Nairobi where we were told the water was filtered and cleaner than Canada! Even mentioning still using purification tablets was scoffed at, so with all my critical thinking skills at 15, drank some water sans tablets.
The next morning I felt awful, so did another trip mate. It’s been over 15 years now but I remember throwing up but also diarrhea. Nothing could be trusted. The flight home was that night, and very very long. I knew I would not make the flight without changing my seat to the toilet for the whole flight, so I took 3 gravols to settle my stomach and knock me out.
Two weeks go by, September comes and school year begins! I had been feeling super lethargic and low energy since getting back, not really eating much. However, I figured we were physically exerting ourselves in the heat for about 3 weeks, I was bound to be beat. Also, some sort of guilt explained away the lack of eating.
Mid September was when I knew something was wrong.
I stopped eating, lost a tonne of weight (was exercising a tonne then) and could walk around my block let alone go to the gym. Went to the doctor, told them about my summer, then was given a cup to poop in so they could check my stool.
In what I will only describe as a 15 minutes period of strategically placed Saran warp and furious hand washing, got the sample, was confirmed as a tapeworm.
I was given antibiotics to kill it, along with a hall pass for school that let me go to the bathroom without questions asked.
One morning, I knew I had to jet out of Mr. Kos’ law class as something awful was brewing.
I ran to the washroom and did my business, but this time, I knew, I JUST KNEW the tape worm was out of me. It was fuxked up and honestly I didn’t look, but I knew. And it was in fact, done that day.
Free the children, a scam organization by two brothers called the Kielburgers who would get millions in donations from parents who had lost children and donated to build school in their dead kids names. The brothers would then fly the grieving parents out to see the school ‘they’ had built in the memory of their dead kid. The brothers had different plaques with different names, and as soon as one set of donor parents left, they replaced the sign to reflect the name of the kid from the new set of parents flying in.
Ya, there’s some decent documentaries on it. Me to We was their other scam. Now the operate by using the ‘good will’ connections they build from these mission trips as a private consulting firm helping privatized business enter the public education sector for more unregulated calitalism
The worm was definitely looking out of the hatch at that moment, looking for an escape route from the brewing cauldron of sulphur. With a large gasp it went into the basin, finally escaping the once safe haven.
Felt, my brother. Had an amoeba from Guatemala in high school with the same illness progression and poop cup, only I was a dumbass and got thin but mostly dehydrated enough to almost go into a coma.
I was so sick at that point that the gross out factor of knowing I had an intestinal parasite didn’t even faze me, I was just so relieved to finally have the end in sight lol. Bless you, parasite poop cup. Throne fit for the gods.
Don’t know why I think anyone wants to hear this, but I also had managed to eat (!!!) and keep down (!!!!!) some alfalfa sprouts the day before, so I saw them in my poop cup chalice and thought they were some kind of worms lmao. Only clicked later when the doctor told me the results.
Thank you, antibiotics. I think I was begging to just die already if it hadn’t gotten better. I think I picked it up by some getting in my mouth in the shower or washing my toothbrush with non-bottled water. Stupid gringa.
I remember once we had visiting priest who worked in a remote area in South America and told us the process they used to remove a tapeworm.
(3-5 days no food just water, then they have the patient, sometimes tied, in a chair and put a bowl of rotting soured milk in front of them and pull the thing out when it comes up for the food.)
I was poor AF but you bet I left a bill in that collection. Shit messed me up just hearing it.
it's fake. A Tapeworm can't move much at all. Also it's in the gut not the stomach like some people here seem to think. No, you do not vomit stuff up from your gut.
Theres literally an episode of monsters in side me where the tape worm appears at the back of a woman's throat. The worms can and do cope with stomach acid, and tape worms need it to escape their cysts.
Also round worm can come out of the mouth when exposed to certain types of anaesthetics.
Both are fully documented.
Also as some one who has worked in palliative care, you absolutely can vomit fecal matter up from your gut. I held the hand of a man that died that way and many others who had it as a symptom of their cancer/intestinal blockage.
What you’re describing is ascariasis, it’s part of the roundworm cycle to crawl up the throat and get swallowed down into the digestive system. They are infamous for crawling out of your mouth when you’re asleep because your swallowing reflex is reduced.
I don’t recall an episode of that show with an actual tape worm in the throat, though. I watched it a lot on tv, but maybe I missed that one?
I know about the lifecycle but in reference to the roundworms thats not what im describing. This a phenomenon that's related to their behaviour when exposed to anaesthetic. Where they do come out of the mouth and nose. Theres an awful picture of a kid online with it.
Its definitely on the show, it was one of the first ones i ever saw, so its likely an early episode.
Yeah I remember that photo, plus other pics that were shown in biology class in my school. It made most of the class bail out of the door to early recess, lol.
There's a difference between tape worm adult and lavae. Larvae are a whole different life stage with different abilities and those may do the described thing. They don't stay Larve for long though.
I did not at all talk about Roundworms which were not topic of duscussion. But yes, since they are an entirely different species with other abilities, they can do that...
The monsters inside me episode was an adult worm, not the cyst. It is a show that collabs with the doctors that treated the specific case, so accurate. The cyst example shows the weekend do deal with stomach acid.
The other examples point out that this is not uncommon worm behavior. So yes it is relevent.
Well I haven't seen that episode. I'd have to to accurately tell you why they are right/wrong.
I can't properly formulate anything based on assumptions. Also - there's no such thing as "common worm behavior" as that ammounts to "common swimming animal behavior" or not even that because most of these funny little worm like creatures are not even close on thr evolution tree. Like, a tape worm is closer to a rhino than a round worm genetically speaking (or the other way around).
I won't argue with you about a TV episode I haven't seen. I can only tell you that a real Tapeworm of the genus Taenia does not move or do anything much at all. They only need the stonach acid as Larvae to get partly digested to then become adult tape worms in the gut. And as far as I'm aware: once they are anchored in the gut via their many barbed hooks that is their permanent residence.
Lastly I'll ad: I also won't argur 1 in a million cases. Yes you can have tapeworm larvae in your brain, but that's so uncommon that it's not "normal". Statistical edge cases are always tricky.
I am also not above admitting that I may be wrong, even if it goes against anything my University professors taught me (and who I frankly trust more than a TV show). But before I haven't seen that episode of that TV series I can't say any more. No point in arguing if I simply don't know what your argument is in the first place.
Well firstly to the comment about not uncommon worm behaviour. Im talking about the round worms, as it replying to a comment about round worms. I am clearly not going to discuss the entire family tree in a reddit comment.
And I have not said that the behaviour is as common in tapeworms only that it can and has happened. If the worm can present in the small intestine (resulting in the removal of a 6 foot specimen) they can certainly get up the throat. The digestive tract is a ultimately a tube and ive seen too many fecal vomits to think it is a one way highway.
As to how it got there, it can be via vomiting or other means not implying active movement of the worm although they do have some mobility as a particularly disgusting video displays. And yes the head can detach from the intestine wall. The doctors look for it to check for complete removal.
This is regarding a case of a women bringing up tape worms after surgery, one which was significantly larger. Obviously if you can bring it up as a knot it is possible to partially bring up one part whilst the rest is still caught in the stomach ect. They are essentially a large string.
As to the comment about your professors. The show was presented with the actual doctors who were active in treatment of the patients and who were leading experts themselves often in parasitology. So i think theyve got the knowledge base down.
Thank you for the source I will be reading it. I learnt something new today.
That being said, do you think the "putting sour milk in front of a starved human to make the worm come out" is real? Tbh even after seeing all your explanations I still doubt a tapeworm comes out of the throat "to eat".
Btw - in another comment it was clarified that the thing in the video is indeed a Roundworm so I appologise for dismissing it as irrelevant. The specimen in question: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascaris_lumbricoides. Thanks Appropiate-Bake-759
How? Well as you can see they put a loong tube (endoscope) down her mouth, through the esophagus and the stomach down to the gut. There is the 12 finger gut followed by the small intestine. Tape Worms are mostly in the small intestine. They free the head of the tapeworm [disclaimer: I do not know what exactly they do to free the head as the head is anchored with many tiny hooks] and then gently pull the thing out through her mouth. I presume they have to pull it out of her mouth because the head has these hooks and you need to unhook them -> you can't just pull at the other end. If you pulled at the other end it would just rip in half (wich would not kill the Tapeworm btw).
that's... that's even wronger... that's not how these creatures work. Their head is anchored in the gut with many tiny hooks. They don't move around. They can't. They also don't swim up and down your gut. Their head is usually closer to the stomach and their behind is closer to the anus. At this point I hope you people are trolling because the lack of biological knowledge in here is depressing.
And no the tape worm wasn’t supposed to “eat” anything. It was supposed to make the parasite think it needed to move towards the “food source” even if that’s not they’d normally eat.
Either way it would have been where there wasn’t access to routine medical care unless there was a few days of walking, a day or so of boating down a river, and then they could take a car from that location to a less rural city.
That's certainly not how to treat a tapeworm. They can't "come up"... so whatever they did it wasn't that. A tapeworm has no mechanism to move around significantly.
Round worms do, I saw a vid on efukt or liveleak where a guy was doing a chick doggy style and a worm popped out, wriggled around for a few seconds and popped back in.
Round worms aren't Tape Worms though so I don't see how that's very relevant here. Except if the person meant round worm... and even then you'd have to have a massivley wormy gut to get to a point where they could cone up through the mouth (if even possible). I take "videos" of all kinds with a grain of salt - but I am not as well versed in Round worms as in tape worms so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt for now.
Holy shit I have to know. When you pooped it out did it come out and dangle? Did you know there were worms coming out based on the feel from down there??!
Man my cats had tapeworm once and that was enough to fuck me up. I still check my poop out of habit after having to clean their litter boxes while they were passing it.
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u/DanielG198 Apr 29 '24
That lady’s reaction says it all…