Nowadays, eating a meal that can potentially fill your body with worms is very unthinkable and surprising, but 46-year-old Zhu Zhongfa, just experienced the thing he couldn’t imagine experiencing and that is suffering in a catastrophic event as a result of ingesting undercooked pork–ZHongfa was utterly infected with tapeworms.
Zhu Zhongfa was unaware that the pork contained Taenia Solium eggs, a parasite when eating the undercooked, raw pork. He soon began experiencing seizures on a daily and underwent many fainting episodes that lasted for weeks on end.
Zhongfa didn’t think much of it at first but after suffering for a month without realizing what he had eaten, Zhongfa made the decision to eventually seek medical attention out of concern that it would become a life-threatening condition.
His local doctor was unable to determine why he was having seizures, and he was referred to the First Affiliated Hospital of the College of Medicine at Zhejiang University.
Doctors at the hospital were able to diagnose the problem but were shocked when an MRI revealed over 700 tapeworms living inside a man’s brain and chest.
Zhongfa had put off obtaining treatment for her seizures and dizziness while working in the construction industry. The spells had gotten so harmful to his bodily system that he was no longer trusted with operating heavy gear at work. Zhongfa, who was raised in Hangzhou, disregarded the physical problems his body was having and didn’t seek medical help until he was at the doctor’s office, foaming at the mouth and losing consciousness of his surroundings.
“Different patients respond [differently] to the infection depending on where the parasites occupy,” Dr. Huang Jianrong, Zhongfa’s doctor at Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, said. “In this case, he had seizures and lost consciousness, but others with cysts in their lungs might cough a lot.”
The larvae’s passage into his bloodstream and subsequent movement all over his body could be verified by medical professionals. Because the larvae were still eggs when he swallowed them, they could move freely throughout his bodily tissue and develop into cysts. His body started growing cysts, which led to the development of cysticercosis, an infection that is extremely deadly if found close to or even near the brain and nerve system. His neural system may have been affected, whereupon neurocysticercosis, which would have been considerably more harmful, could have developed.
Zhongfa did not hesitate to reveal that he had truly ingested raw food more than a month ago, as Dr. Huang said, ”He not only had numerous space=occupying lesions in his brain, but he also had cysts in his lungs and chest muscles.”
The extent of the worms’ dissemination was the outcome of this. According to Dr. Huang, a person’s possible response to infection depends on the location of the parasites’ available area. The parasitic tapeworms in Zhongfa’s case had entered his lungs and brain, leading to unconsciousness and intermittent seizures.
Eggs of tapeworms can be detected in the feces of infected animals, and if contaminated meat is not properly prepared or washed, it may be consumed by people. The meat can be thoroughly frozen or heated to an internal temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit to kill the microscopic eggs.
The tapeworms will move throughout the body if the eggs are swallowed, where they will hatch and develop to be up to 26 feet long. When the parasites outgrow them, the protective cysts that the larvae build around themselves still exist. The cysts can lead to infections and long-term harm as they decompose, but there is nothing that can be done about them despite the fact that medication can be used to kill the worms.