Due to the ingestion of a worm such as pinworm, a disease called enterobiasis begins in our body. Prefers to live the parasite in the human intestine, where it feels very good and actively multiplies. Most often, children suffer from pinworms, but adults are also not immune from this parasite.
What are pinworms
These are parasitic roundworms, the female of which can grow in length from 9 to 12 mm, and the male from 2 to 5 mm. The female in the human body lives from one to three weeks, but pinworm eggs, laid in the folds of the perianal region, can infect other people after 5-6 hours.
Reasons for the appearance
Practice shows that pinworm infection occurs due to poor hygiene. After staying in public places, especially in restrooms, washing hands with soap should be a habit. After all, the eggs of the parasite can be anywhere. They are easy to pick up on the toilet seat, from bedding and underwear, from baby pots. Even in the air, pinworm eggs fly with dust.
Once in the small intestine and stomach, pinworm eggs begin to germinate in the larvae. Having reached puberty, worms begin abundant reproduction. Females lay eggs in the anus, leaving the rectum and delivering unpleasant sensations to humans. Even in a dream, the patient scratches an itchy place, the eggs of the worms fall under the nails, and during breakfast a person re-infects himself. The cycle of development of the parasite begins anew.
Pinworms: how to treat
After infection, the first thing a person feels in a short time is the itching of the anus. If the child complains of itching and constantly itches, serious attention should be paid to this. Another sign is intestinal disorders, expressed in diarrhea, colic of the umbilical zone and the area of the colon. Pinworms can provoke appendicitis, serious inflammatory processes in the mucosa of the duodenum, leading to gastritis of varying severity.
Constant combing of the itching area in patients provokes various dermatitis, eczema of a weeping or dry type. Therefore, you should know what pinworms are, how to treat this disease.
If a child wakes up at night from itching, we recommend taking a smear in the morning with a cotton swab in the anus. Take the analysis to the clinic, where they will establish an accurate diagnosis. But you can take an analysis in the clinic itself, for this you should go to the pediatrician's office and get a referral.
If the diagnosis is confirmed, treatment should be initiated. First of all, these are measures for thorough hand hygiene, especially in babies. If you don’t wash your hands before eating, then the disease will go in circles! Be sure to trim the nails on your hands, this will allow you to thoroughly wash the microorganisms from under the nails. Treatment is provided for all family members.
So, if pinworms are discovered, how to treat them? Mild cases of infection do not require serious treatment. It is enough to put an enema at night, which will wash out mature individuals from the lower intestine, after which it remains only to observe hygiene.
Pinworms: what to treat with medication
More often prescribed drugs for the parasite, such as “piperazine”, “Vermox”, “Pirantel”. It should be repeated once again that no cure for pinworms will help if you do not keep your hands clean. Every day, bed and underwear should be changed, which is washed and carefully ironed with a hot iron!