A man suddenly had an epilepsy in the middle of the night. Was it because he had a worm in his brain?

It is hard for people to imagine that parasites can enter the human brain.

What is even more unimaginable is that a parasite has existed in the human brain for decades.

A 38-year-old Boston man went to the doctor for a seizure, and tests revealed that he had been living with a dead tapeworm in his brain for years.

I feel a little tingling...

How did he find out?

It was hard not to notice. The man fell out of bed in the middle of the night, shaking and talking nonsense. When rescuers arrived, the man was "vigorous" and "disoriented" and refused to get in the ambulance.

After he was forcibly sent to the hospital, he suffered another epileptic seizure (also known as epilepsy). Since he had no relevant medical history, no one knew why he had a sudden epileptic seizure.

Brain scans revealed swelling and damage to his brain, typical of neurocysticercosis, a parasitic infection that can cause seizures and headaches and, in severe cases, death.

Brain scan of a patient with cerebral cysticercosis

Image source: UCSD Guardian

Infection with neurocysticercosis is mostly caused by eating undercooked diseased pork, which contains eggs of the pork tapeworm (Taenia solium).

These eggs will hatch in the human body and become larvae, which will wander around your body as if it were their own home, such as entering the brain and causing cysts inside the brain.

Pork infected with tapeworms is called "rice pork"

Image source: Internet

If the patient does not wash his hands after going to the toilet and then touches food and other things, tapeworms may be spread. Friends, you must wash your hands before meals and after going to the toilet!

Scanning electron micrograph of the head of a Taenia solium cysticercus.

Photo credit: STEVE GSCHMEISSNER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY via Getty Images

In less developed rural areas where pigs are raised freely, brain cysticercosis may be more common because pigs may eat human feces and become infected.

The patient's illness may have been traced to when he moved to Boston from rural Guatemala about 20 years ago.

What’s special about him is that he has lived with parasites for more than 20 years. Fortunately, the parasites in his body have died and calcified, and are not still alive and well in his brain.

Although the outward symptoms of the parasitic infection disappeared, some brain damage remained, which led to epileptic seizures.

The parasites usually die in the body within five to 10 years, but they continue to cause inflammation, leading to headaches, pain, and seizures.

Terrifying thought...

Doctors gave the patient antiparasitic and anti-inflammatory drugs, and he was discharged from the hospital five days later.

According to subsequent follow-up, the largest damage to his brain had healed, and he seemed to have recovered well. He has been in good condition and has not had any seizures since.

It's a blessing in disguise.

Source | Live Science

Translation | Kang Jiani

WeChat Editor |

Source: Museum