PIN WORMS IN HUMANS SKIN

The contents herein are for informational purposes only. Clean bedding often and avoid shaking bed linens and clothing prior to washing.Īll material copyright MediResource Inc. Wash night clothes, underwear and hand towels daily. People who have been infected should shower every morning to help eliminate any eggs on the skin. Children should wear closed sleeping garments or snug underpants to prevent hand contact and contamination of bedding. They should be worn all day and changed twice daily. Wash your hands frequently, especially after going to the toilet, after scratching, and before eating, and keep your fingernails short to reduce the chance of picking up pinworm eggs.ĭuring the week after treatment, all family members should wear cotton underpants that have been washed in hot soapy water. You can relieve itching in the anal area with petroleum jelly or anti-itching creams and ointments. It is essential to machine wash all bedding, clothing, and toys in order to kill all the eggs. Reinfection is still common because live eggs continue to be excreted in feces for up to a week after the treatment. Since the eggs can be easily spread, everyone in the household must be treated with the medication, even if they do not have any symptoms. Both mebendazole and pyrantel pamoate are given as a single dose and repeated in 2 weeks to kill any newly ingested eggs. The prescription of choice is mebendazole* and the non-prescription medication of choice is pyrantel pamoate. Medications kill only the adult worms and have no effect on developing eggs and larvae. A diagnosis should be confirmed before treating with medications. The key is to break the 6-week cycle of pinworm reinfection by killing any live pinworms and preventing the ingestion of eggs. Pinworms cause no harm or discomfort apart from anal itching, and treatment cures most cases. Pinworms can also sometimes be seen in stool samples. This test may have to be repeated 5 times. The eggs and worms caught on the tape can be identified under a microscope. Then fold the tape on itself, sticky side down, and take it to the doctor.

PIN WORMS IN HUMANS SKIN

Pat the folds of skin around the anus with the sticky side of the tape. Any worms that are discovered should be placed in alcohol or vinegar and taken to the clinic or doctor for diagnosis.Īnother method of diagnosis involves the use of a piece of sticky tape to pick up any eggs or worms that may be around the anal area in the morning before washing or a bowel movement. The white, hair-thin female worm is only about 10 mm long (males average 3 mm), but it wriggles and is clearly visible to the eye without a microscope. The person should be sleeping for at least an hour before inspection. To find a female worm, examine the area around an infected person's anus at night with a flashlight. Humans are the only natural host of pinworms.Ī diagnosis of a pinworm infection is made by finding the female worm or the eggs. For the eggs that fell off onto adjacent clothing or bedding, they can survive for as long as 3 weeks at room temperature - waiting for unsuspecting hands to carry them into the mouth. Pinworm eggs attached to the skin around the anus hatch within 6 hours, and the emerging larvae migrate back into the anus to reside and mature within the lower intestine. Adult worms can live for approximately 3 months and an adult female can lay more than 10,000 eggs in her lifetime. Once eaten, the eggs hatch in the intestine and develop into adult worms within 2 to 6 weeks.

If these materials are shaken, it is even possible to spread the eggs in the air and swallow them directly.

Since the eggs can survive for up to 20 days, they might be found in bedding and clothing. They can then be carried to the mouth and swallowed or can be transmitted to others by touch. The eggs can be transferred to the fingers, either by directly scratching the anal area or by way of clothing or bedding.

The eggs are deposited in a sticky, jelly-like substance that, along with the wriggling of the mother pinworm, causes severe itching. She slips out of her host's rectum and lays eggs in the folds of skin around the edge of the anus. At night, the female worm leaves her home in an infected person's lower intestinal tract.