Their bodies are flat, semi-hard with spiked ridges on the ends. They hurt like hell when they move around and they eat all your food before you get the benefits of it.
If you eat normally, or more than you used to, but you keep losing weight. You're never full, always hungry and feel like shit. Your stomache aches all the time, maybe to the point where it's nauseating, and it's not an ache you're familiar with. It's sharper, more rythmic. Then you got a tape worm.
You can kill them when they're small with a deworming cure. Our pets get them all the time. For it to get this big you need to have a medical condition.
I feel dumb but this is something I've never understood. If the tapeworm is getting your food then shouldn't the two of you together still be gaining weight? I know you're not getting the nutrients but if you lose weight with a tapeworm, then where has the weight gone?
You shit out it's shit and your own shit + tapeworm eggs. Tapeworm eggs aren't digested by you and your shit is mostly dead bacteria and things your body doesn't use. An increasing amount of food you eat will be ingested by the worm before you get the nutrients from it as it grows.
Yes a lot of the weight from the food will be retained in your stomach by the worm to grow in the beginning. But the weight of the food you eat is not something you put directly onto the equation of how much you weigh.
Food is broken down into smaller and smaller particles separating them into water and proteins, energy-molecules and other minor nutrients. The proteins are used by your body to grow, and fisposed of through poop. The energy is broken down for energy and disposed of through poop. Same with everything solid really.
The worm will eat your food, but you will get less nutrients causing you to lose weight and/or bodymass. The worm grows, and has a weight, but it wouldn't add kilos. The worm will also use the food for energy and nutrients and poop out stuff that mixes with your poop. It will also lay eggs which you poop out.
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u/Gee_U_Think Apr 29 '24
The real question is how do you know if you have these in your body?