Human epilepsy was found to be caused by dead worms in his brain

Depression can be a catastrophic event, but for one unfortunate person, the risk was exacerbated by the discovery that dead tapeworm cysts that had been in his brain for years were the cause. Fortunately, her seizures were completely healed, and she apparently recovered.

Doctors in Massachusetts he explained the patient’s case in a paper last week in the New England Journal of Medicine. According to the report, which includes the testimony of his wife, the 38-year-old man fell from his bed at 4am. When police and paramedics arrived, he was “a violent man and a psychic” and initially refused to go to the hospital by ambulance. On his way to the hospital, he suffered a concussion for two minutes and was given laxatives, usually treated with epilepsy.

The man had no health problems, and, according to his family, he was fine yesterday. As soon as doctors were able to diagnose CT and MRI scans in his brain, however, the underlying cause of his disease was: a few cysts and those who had died a long time ago. Doctors later determined that he had a rare infection from swine tapeworm (Taenia solium), called neurocysticercosis.

Swine tapeworm disease is eradicated very visible in two ways. If we eat worms found in pigs or other unripe meat that have grown into small cysts, the cysts move into our gut and grow into large worms – long, unpleasant, weight loss. The worms produce eggs that come out of the stomach and are able to return to other animals such as pigs, so that the cycle begins again.

But if someone or someone who is infected then eats the eggs, the new generation of worms comes to an end and can mature into their own life. Unfortunately, the danger does not end there, as cysts can also explodek chaos wherever they go. When they cling to the brain, they can trigger stress and trigger inflammation that results in all sorts of symptoms, including coma and even death. But it can take years or decades for the onset of the disease to show symptoms, usually after the death of the worm (large larvae can live up to 30 years; cysts have a short life span of about five years). In some cases, cysts and the underlying complications can be present confused for a tumor in the brain.

Locally infected worms are rare in the US but are still found in developing countries. And what doctors think is that their patient played the game 20 years ago at their home in Guatemala, before moving to the US.

Following treatment with anti-epileptic drugs and steroids, the man’s condition (including inflammation around the brain lesions) improved so much that he was released from the hospital within five days. Although cysts can sometimes be surgically removed or treated with antiparasite if they are still alive, they are often not possible or necessary, and patients who have fainted are given long-term treatment to correct or prevent them in the future. it was so here. Unfortunately, subsequent visits after three years found that the man had not had epilepsy since then and remained healthy.

Although neurocysticercosis is rarely present here, it is one of the leading causes of coma that occurs as adults grow worldwide. Even in the US, about 1,000 people are hospitalized each year. Cysticercosis is often regarded as a poorly treated disease, and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are now “Nothing is happening to monitor, prevent, or diagnose and treat neurocysticercosis.”