Many people are convinced that worms live mainly in the intestines. But this erroneous statement in fact they can live in almost any organ. For example, worms sometimes live in the brain, heart, liver, eyes, and also in the blood. That is why the usual analysis of stool, which is used to diagnose parasites, can not always determine their presence in the body. In total there are about 300 species of parasites, which of them can live in the blood?
Worms in the blood of a person, and especially a child, are infrequent. The patient may not know about his illness for a long time. Invasion does not have any specific signs, they basically depend on the type of parasite and the organ that is affected. In the presence of helminths in the blood of a person, the symptoms are usually the following: headache, dizziness, fever, there may also be allergic reactions to the skin. The signs of the disease often depend on the pathogen.
Symptoms of mansonellosis in the blood
The causative agent is Mansonella ozzardi. This worm lives in the blood of a person, it gets there from the intermediate carrier - the slimy. Larvae of helminths move freely in the peripheral blood, and adults prefer to live mainly in the subcutaneous tissue and adipose tissue of the organs. Sexually mature can live in the body for about three years.
In this disease, the symptoms are usually expressed moderately. A sick child or adult may experience fever, joint pain, numbness of the limbs, headache, rashes on the skin, and severe dizziness. Worms in the blood do not cause specific symptoms, so sometimes they are difficult to diagnose.
Most often, mansonellosis is found in the countries of Central and South America, and some islands of the Caribbean can also be dangerous foci. Such worms respond well to treatment, as a rule, in this case, with a timely treatment, the prognosis is favorable.
Trypanosome Worms in the Blood
Such worms are very dangerous for the child and adult, they cause Chagas disease and sleeping sickness. In the first case, the carriers are triatom bugs, and in the second, the tsetse fly. Trypanosomes get to the person through a bite of infected insects. These diseases are tropical, therefore they are prevalent mainly in Central and South America.
Such kind of worms in the blood in a person cause different symptoms dangerous to life. For example, with Chagas' disease, a patient may not at first be aware of her illness. At an early stage of the disease, swelling occurs at the site of the bite, fever, headache, tachycardia, and enlarged lymph nodes.
Then the worms, moving through the blood, begin to affect all organs, causing inflammation, but mostly they are localized in the heart muscle and in the digestive tract. In the absence of treatment, a sick child or an adult can die from heart failure. Previously, this disease was considered incurable, but now there are drugs that can help, but mostly they are effective at an early stage. Lesions of internal organs caused by worms are irreversible.
Sleeping sickness first manifests itself with similar signs, the patient also suffers from headache, fever, itching and pain in the joints. Later in the second stage, other symptoms are already manifested: confusion, numbness of limbs, problems with coordination of movements, as well as sleep disturbance. Treatment of worms in the blood in a child and an adult is effective at an early stage until the patient does not have neurological signs.
Hemosporidia in the blood of a child
This name unites more than a hundred species of protozoan parasites, some of them are very dangerous for people because they cause malaria. Worms in the blood of a child and an adult can lead to death. Such parasites are characterized by a difficult life cycle, they often change the owners.
As soon as the hemosporidia have appeared in the blood, they immediately begin violent reproduction. The carriers of the disease are insects. The disease manifests itself fever, severe chills, headache and vomiting. The patient can feel a slight tingling sensation on the skin. The disease caused by these parasites is deadly, so at the first symptoms you need to see a doctor.
Can there be worms in the blood? Proceeding from all the above, now we can confidently say that helminths can live not only in the intestines, but also in the blood. As a rule, the diseases caused by the above species are very dangerous for the child and adult, so you can not delay with treatment.