Do you worm yourself and your family?

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Last weekend I was listening to a PBS broadcast (Tony Browns Journal) and a doctor was stating how ascarids (common round worms we all have) could be the cause of asthma and other lung problems. She also went on to say we should be worming our animals and not allowing them in the home. So my question to you is, do you worm yourselves? I found a wormer at the drug store that was for only pinworms. Benzasoles for livestock will kill ascarids. Why do we worm our livestock and farm dogs yet don't worm ourselves? Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), June 07, 2000

Answers

Vicki, Tony Brown's Journal is interesting, but they do like to book guests closer to the edges than the center. I don't get real excited about worming my animals, and from time to time I do see worms, especially in the cats and dogs. A while back I was terribly ill and since I've spent my entire life with animals, one of the tests they ran was for worms. Zip, zero, zilch, nada, nothing. A lot of the worms that animals get are not parasites of people. Those that are are generally fairly difficult to catch. Some are relatively easy to catch. Yet I don't have them. It sure isn't because of my housekeeping. I do just about everything you aren't "supposed" to do and still no worms. The only thing I don't do is walk around outside (much) barefoot. But that's because I don't like being barefoot outside. Inside, along with the house cats, dogs, and visiting barn cats, plus any bottle lambs and any other livestock in the house at the moment, I'm barefoot in warm weather. And let me put it this way, you don't just not want to eat off the floors here, you don't want to eat off the kitchen table. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), June 07, 2000.

Hi, Vicki. Here's a link for you: www.CDC.gov

They have a link for "roundworms", and then a "stats on ascariasis" link. For people who don't care to surf there, it states that infection is pretty rare in the U.S., more likely in the Southeastern parts of the country, and usually from accidentally ingesting the eggs. The most common pathway was from soil to humans, and the likelihood of that happening was increased if pig manure was used as fertilizer. Children are more susceptible than adults.

Treatment is 1-3 days on some pill, and infection in humans is usually asymptomatic and light. Pregnant women usually wait until after delivery to treat it. (ewwww) These larvae hatch in your stomache, migrate to your lungs, go into your throat, get swallowed, and then take up residence in your intestines. 12" long, these guys. (ewww)

If I have these guys, I don't want to know. I'm barefoot and eating stuff out of the garden all the time. If I drop something in the dirt, I pick it back up and eat it. But, if Gerbil doesn't have worms, I probably don't either.

-- Rachel (rldk@hotmail.com), June 07, 2000.


Vicki, I have a friend (also a goatkeeping Vicki), who says that she routinely feeds her kids/grandkids the milk from goats that have just been wormed. She does it as a way of worming them, and says that it has never hurt them. I'm not so sure I would feel safe about that, but I just wormed my goats, and saved one quart of the milking after that, in case I decided to go ahead and try it. I have a little boy that I suspect could be wormy, because he eats more than my husband or myself, yet is not larger than usual for his age. So I marked the jar with a W and a worm, and put it in the fridge. The next evening, I happened to see that jar,now empty, on the kitchen counter! Turns out my husband had drunk it all, and had used some of it in the morning pancakes, too. He didn't remember that he'd been warned about it the night before. He was pretty upset about it, but so far he seems alright, hasn't complained about feeling sick or anything, so I guess it didn't hurt him. There are a lot of parasites that not only can travel from an animal to a human host, but their life cycle depends upon it. When I took the fecal sample from the goats in to the vet, they said that they were glad that I had included samples from several of the goats, because sometimes the animals will have worms, but not be shedding them in the manure. So it is possible,for example, that Gerbil could have worms, but wasn't shedding any worms or eggs at the time of the sample.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@transport.com), June 08, 2000.

One of my cousins had pin-worms when we were kids. Her parents weren't nearly as upset about it as I was -- seemed like old hat to them, so I guess that it must be fairly common in some places (at least, where the children are outside a lot and with animals, as we were). And I've heard of some of the old-time wormers for animals being used on people, too (nasty poisonous stuff like a plug of tobacco).

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), June 08, 2000.

Thanks for the answers you guys! I am definetly going to do more research on this. I have asthma for very unexplained reasons, and am willing to try nearly anything at this point, though I am able to control it. Thanks again. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), June 08, 2000.


Say Vicki, does your asthma occur after we've had a bout of rain? Lately I have been getting kind of a cough after rains and my friend has asthma only then. I think it may be mold. Allergies seem to be the driving force of asthma, and with that funky killer mold we have here in Texas, I thought that might be an avenue for you to explore. Good luck!

-- Doreen (livinginskin@yahoo.com), June 08, 2000.

In reading a book on the low-carb diets, the doctors who wrote it were saying that asthma is one of the things that often improves, or even clears up completely, on a low-carb diet. Though if you are having problems after a rain, I would agree that mold is likely the immediate trigger.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), June 09, 2000.

Vicki,

Ever look into food allergies for your asthma? Most people overlook that aspect. Good book is "Is This Your Child?" by Dr Doris Rapp It has all the information you may need for this problem.

-- Dee (gdgtur@goes.com), June 09, 2000.


As a tie-in to a couple of threads about health care...I came back from a trip to Asia and found I had pinworms. I called a local community clinic and they called a prescription in to a drugstore for me. Cost of 5 pills(5 years ago): $38.00!! I guess worms are a hush-hush sort of malady here so you pay hush money prices for the cure. I had a friend get some worming pills in Malaysia... cost for two rounds: $2.50. Haven't had need of them yet though.

-- snoozy (allen@oz.net), June 09, 2000.

Me again. My son and I take grape seed and black walnut to kill any "bugs" we may pick up. Great antioxitant.

-- Dee (gdgtur@goes.com), June 09, 2000.


Vivi, As a lab tech I know that pinworms are still common here in the good old USA. And I know one strange goat guy who claims to take ivermectin when he worms his goats! I have drank goats milk from recently wormed goats with out ill effects, wasn't trying to deworm anybody just needed the milk. to get on my soap box asthma is becoming more prevalent due to the increase in pollution in the air we breathe, just like skin cancer is on the rise due to the thinning and holes in the ozone layer. You can stay out of the sun and filter you air part of the time but not all of the time. I think the guy on BBC is full of manure!! karen

-- Karen Mauk (dairygoatmama@hotmail.com), June 11, 2000.

In some areas around the upper Nile River, the local governments actually sponsor clinics in which everyone in the area goes in and gets a free dose of Ivermectin. It is given to kill a type of worm that lives in the eyes and causes blindness. Before the free clinics, the blindness rate there was tremendous, affecting everyone over the age of three, I believe. Most of the population was blind by the age of 35. Now, there are very few incidencens of blindness being caused by the parasites. I would NOT, however, take Ivermectin myself. We don't have that kind of parasite, and I would think it would be risky.

-- Green (ratdogs10@yahoo.com), June 11, 2000.

I recently saw some research indicating that the root cause of athsma may be our diet -- also arthritis. Pollution, pollen, etc. may trigger the symptoms, but a change of diet seems to have helped a lot of folks -- when all they were doing was trying to lose weight with one of the low-carb diets!!

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), June 11, 2000.

I read a lot of natural health books and they often say parasites are more common than we think in the U.S. I've also read of a man who was tested several times for roundworms and it always came out negative. He had health problems and decided to treat himself for parasites with herbs. It took awhile but they came out eventually, lots of them. Black walnut and wormwood are common remedies. Mary

-- Mary Fraley (kmfraley@orwell.net), June 12, 2000.

There's a good herbal people dewormer available at www.herbalhealer.com Anyone who spends any kind of time outside and/or near animals should worm themselves. At least with this stuff, I know it was formulated for people. I'm sure other herb places have soemthing similar.

-- Sue (sulandherb@aol.com), June 14, 2000.


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