Despite the fact that modern medicine is developing at a gigantic pace, according to the World Health Organization, today approximately 4.5 billion people around the globe suffer from parasitic diseases. And here is just the case when we can not blame these depressing indicators on the backwardness and poverty of the third world countries: every second of the patients is a European. Moreover, parasitic diseases claim an average of 15 million human lives every year.
Medicine knows about a hundred varieties of parasitic organisms-from microscopic to worms, the length of which is measured in several meters. It would be wrong to believe that the human intestine is the only place where they live. They are equally capable of developing in our esophagus, liver, lungs, muscles, joints, brain tissues, as well as in blood cells and directly in the skin. The list of diseases that they can cause is also very extensive – this is bronchial asthma, diabetes, eczema, psoriasis, and inflammatory diseases of the joints. Parasites also provoke various types of allergies, deprive our body of immunity. And there are also no less dangerous, but to a lesser extent easily diagnosed so-called sluggish diseases, also caused by parasites of the disease. Add here the wrong course of treatment-because sometimes, without being able to fully examine the patient with the help of traditional diagnostic methods, the doctor prescribes completely wrong medications! As a result, the symptoms of the disease are suppressed, and the cause of the patient’s serious condition remains.
How do parasites signal themselves? The symptoms of parasitic diseases depend on the phase of development of the parasite. In their development, doctors distinguish acute and chronic stages. The acute stage begins from the moment of infection of the patient and lasts two to three weeks (in the case of a severe course of the disease – up to two months). You can guess what happened to you in the case of allergic manifestations (rash, dry choking cough, an increase in the level of eosinophils in the blood), which develop in response to the appearance of antigens (fragments) of migrating larvae in the blood.
The chronic stage of parasite development occurs after the acute stage and lasts for several weeks, months or years (in some helminthic diseases – up to tens of years). The symptoms of this stage depend on the location of the parasites, their number, and nutritional characteristics.
Having captured part of your internal organs, parasites damage the tissues, because their “means of attachment” to them are hooks, spikes, cutting plates, cuticle spikes. The result of such injuries is irritation of the tissues of internal organs, the development of inflammatory reactions. Some parasites – cysticerci or echinococcal cysts-grow very quickly, and provided that they usually settle in the brain, eyeballs, liver-you can imagine what disorders of functions threaten your vital organs.
Parasites constantly absorb” your ” valuable nutrients – proteins, minerals, carbohydrates, vitamins, as a result, the process of absorption of digested food in the intestine is disrupted. And some emit substances that neutralize “your” digestive enzymes – for example, ascaris neutralizes pepsin and trypsin, without which the digestion of proteins is unthinkable.
Worms (helminths) have their own “laws” of vital activity. By stimulating the immune response, they cause suppression of the immune system, that is, the resulting immunodeficiency reduces the human resistance to infections, both viral and bacterial. And here preventive vaccinations will not give any effect.
If worms have settled in your body, then prepare for the fact that you may have allergic reactions, fever, skin rashes, swelling, muscle and joint pain, and enlarged lymph nodes. Most likely, according to the results of the blood test, you will have eosinophilia and leukocytosis (an increase in the level of eosinophils and white blood cells). Usually, these diseases are just a background for the pulmonary syndrome, the severity of which can vary from coughing to pneumonia, pleurisy and choking attacks. Often there is an abdominal syndrome, characterized by abdominal pain and alternating constipation with diarrhea, bloating. The liver and spleen often increase in size, and there may be manifestations of damage to the central nervous system (fatigue, headaches, irritability).
Unfortunately, the fact that you have eaten a parasite is not always signaled by fever, muscle pain, swelling, jaundice, enlarged liver and spleen. Often, the chronic phase of a parasitic disease is asymptomatic, especially if you have actually eaten one parasite. And serious symptoms will not appear until the eaten ascaris or broad tapeworm reaches a large size.