Doctors say a Florida man’s worsening headaches were being caused by tapeworm larvae growing inside his brain.
The parasites likely came from undercooked bacon, which the patient admitted to eating for most of his life, Knewz.com has learned.
The 52-year-old man had a history of chronic migraines, but over the course of about four months, they became worse, more frequent and no longer responded to his usual therapies, according to an article published in the American Journal of Case Reports on Thursday, March 7.
When he sought treatment, doctors asked an array of questions about his travel and any lifestyle changes, and found nothing significant, except for the fact that the patient said he had “a habit of eating lightly cooked, non-crispy bacon for most of his life.”
The medical team suspected he might have a case of neurocysticercosis, an infection that occurs when the larvae of a pork tapeworm become embedded within the nervous system.
A CT scan revealed several cysts in the patient’s brain, and he was rushed to urgent care where he could be examined more closely.
Through continued tests, doctors confirmed he had, indeed, contracted neurocysticercosis, and that the cysts in his brain were actually parasitic tapeworm larvae.
However, the patient didn’t develop the infection from simply ingesting the undercooked bacon; The condition occurs when the eggs from an intestinal pork tapeworm — in a condition called taeniasis — within one human’s feces are ingested by another human.
The medical team ultimately concluded the man likely infected himself in this manner.
“It can only be speculated, but given our patient’s predilection for undercooked pork and benign exposure history, we favor that his cysticercosis was transmitted via autoinfection after improper handwashing after he had contracted taeniasis himself from his eating habits,” the case report said.
The patient opted to be treated with an antiparasitic drug called albendazole.
“The patient was successfully treated, with regression of lesions and improvement of headaches,” the doctors said.
Medical experts said the diagnosis was tricky due to the man’s preexisting conditions, which included chronic migraines and type 2 diabetes complicated by obesity, high cholesterol and peripheral neuropathy.
Neurocysticercosis can also be difficult to detect because of its wide range of effects.
“Due to high variability in presentation, it is important to consider that neurocysticercosis can present as a benign and isolated neurological symptom, such as the headache seen in our patient,” the medical team said.
They also said the case highlights the importance of considering neurocysticercosis when existing neurological conditions show changes, even without obvious risk factors.
While chronic migraines do not warrant neuroimaging like MRIs or CT scans, “acute and persistent changes in migraine frequency or character should raise concern for a new pathology, as in our patient,” the doctors said.
Neurocysticercosis is most commonly acquired through travel, and has “left a large impact on humanity in history as distant as ancient Greece,” according to the medical team.
The post Tapeworm in Florida Man’s Brain: Undercooked Bacon, Improper Hand-Washing Led to Migraine Symptoms, Larvae Parasites, Doctors Say appeared first on Knewz.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Marissa Papanek
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://knewz.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.