Severe migraines: after 7 years he discovered they were caused by larvae
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With long-standing headaches, a 25-year-old Australian woman was unpleasantly surprised to find that she actually had tapeworm larvae in her brain.
In Australia, a young woman who complained of recurring headaches for several years discovered that the larvae she had had settled in her brain. A rare but potentially fatal neurological pathology that could be operated on, as reported by an American publication.
A similar case was discovered by American doctors, who were about to operate on Rachel Palma, a 42-year-old woman who reportedly suffered from a malignant tumor, but also had a baby in the brain.
At age 25, she discovered that her migraines were caused by tapeworm larvae in her brain.
On this occasion, it is Australian specialists who have just revealed in a publication of the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, the case of this woman, who had complained for almost 7 years of recurrent headaches, and who ended up consulting after a week of pain associated with vision problems.
Seeing that the painkillers that she had always been prescribed were not working, she underwent numerous tests. And like Rachel Palma, MRI scans initially told doctors it was a tumor, but after removing the lesion in question, surgeons found "a cyst filled with tapeworm larvae." as reported by the study broadcast by CNN.
A fatal neurological disease, which can be the cause of epilepsy.
This condition is known as neurocysticercosis, which can cause neurological symptoms when larval cysts develop in the brain. People who contract this parasitic infection do so by swallowing the eggs found in the feces of a person with tapeworms, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), "the authors of the article explain. on CNN.
But, neurocysticercosis (or cysticercosis of the brain) is a fatal disease, which is one of the main causes of epilepsy in adults.
Asked by the Washington Post, Professor Bobbi Pritt, a specialist in parasitology at the Mayo Clinic (United States), explained that once the tapeworm eggs are in the small intestine, the larvae could penetrate the intestinal wall, then the blood, and could then migrate throughout the body, including the brain.
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