How are the symptoms and signs of ascariasis?

Ascaridosis is a parasitic disease, caused by the human ascarid. In most cases, this disease occurs in places with a warm and humid climate, but in our country, too, are regularly detected cases of infection. As statistics show, ascaridosis infected more than 1 billion people around the world.

Human ascarids are classified as a group of roundworms. Developing, these worms go through several stages. If a person swallows the mature eggs of ascarids, its infection occurs and ascariasis of the intestine develops. It is there that larvae begin to appear from the eggs, which subsequently penetrate through the intestinal membrane into the human blood.

Thus, the larvae first enter the lungs, then into the bronchi, pharynx and return to the digestive tract, where in the small intestine they turn into adult individuals, become fixed and start laying eggs. The duration of existence and development of these worms is about a year, throughout this time the females actively lay their eggs( about 240 thousand eggs per day).Eggs are mixed with feces and fall into the soil, which allows them to move again and again along the path described above.

Causes of Ascaridosis in Adults and Children

The transmission factor of this infection is the soil. The eggs of ascaris with the feces of an infected person get into the soil and remain there alive for many years. The most common is ascariasis in children - the symptoms of this infection are manifested in the same way as in adults. Children are more prone to this infection, because they have a habit of constantly putting their fingers in their mouth, whether they are clean or dirty. In addition, they often come into contact with the ground: when playing in the sandbox or on the playground, while walking in the forest or in the park.

In addition, ascaris eggs can enter the body with food. They are both on grass, and on vegetables, fruits, greens. If you use these products unwashed, you can catch ascaridosis.

Symptoms and signs of illness

When ascarids get into the human body, they cause him a lot of inconvenience. During the migration of ascarids through the mild signs of ascariasis appear in the form of fever, cough and pain in the sternum. When parasites enter the intestine and increase in size, they begin to obstruct the food through the digestive tract, which leads to a deterioration in the digestion of food and the absorption of nutrients.

When diagnosed with ascariasis, the symptoms in some cases look like a stool disorder, nausea, intermittent abdominal pain, lack of appetite, frequent colds, weakness, and weight loss. When ascarids enter the human body, they begin to release toxic products of vital activity in the intestine, which can lead to the appearance of an allergic rash on the skin.

There are also cases when ascarids clog the lumen of the intestine or bile ducts. This mechanical obturation leads to problems such as intestinal obstruction, biliary colic, appendicitis, cholangitis and cholecystitis.

Sometimes the symptoms of ascaridosis in adults, as well as in children, may not manifest themselves. In this case, one year after infection, the roundworm simply perishes and leaves the body together with feces.

Diagnosis and prevention of ascaridosis

But how to identify ascariasis? For any professional laboratory specialist this is not difficult. To reliably determine the presence of infection, it is necessary to pass an assay for ascariasis. If there is a disease of the first phase, ascaris larvae will be found in the sputum. In addition, the chest X-ray at this stage can show infiltrates.

If the disease has passed into the intestinal stage, the main method of diagnosis is the study of the patient's feces for ascaris eggs. You can get additional information using intestinal X-ray with contrast, as well as ultrasound of the abdominal cavity.

To prevent this infection from entering the body, it is necessary to observe a number of simple rules:

• thoroughly wash products that could have contact with the ground( vegetables, fruits or greens);
• after contact or work on the ground, wash hands twice with soap and water;
• not to let the child pull the earth in his mouth and teach him to wash his hands after playing outside;
• place children's sandboxes in the sun and regularly loosen sand;
• not allow children to play street shoes;
• weekly wet cleaning house.

If there is a suspicion of ascariasis, you should immediately consult a doctor. With a confirmed diagnosis of ascaridosis, treatment is carried out with special medications, rather than with folk medicine, so do not self-medicate. To confirm the effectiveness of the treatment, the patient undergoes a control study - if the egg is successful, the ascarids in the feces will not be found.