Cysticercosis

Category: Illness or disabilities

Type

Involuntary

Introduction and description

Cysticercosis is infection caused by the young form of the pork tapeworm, specifically the eggs – thus it is a parasitical disease.  

When a person is infected with the adult worms, it has a different name – Taeniasis and is treated as a different disease, despite the fact that people who live with someone with the pork tapeworm and have Taeniasis have a greater risk of getting cysticercosis. 

It is made yet more complicated by the fact that if the tapeworm manages to reach the brain it is then called neurocysticercosis. 

High prevalences are reported in Mexico, Latin America, West Africa, Russia, India, Pakistan, North-East China, and Southeast Asia.  The frequency has according to Wikipedia ‘decreased in developed countries owing to stricter meat inspection, better hygiene and better sanitation of facilities’, but we believe this complacency is misplaced.  It may be being severely under diagnosed, as the damage to the brain that it causes appears to be being ignored and labelled with names such as dementia and schizophrenia – both of which it can cause.  Neurocysticercosis (NCC) is the most common helminthic infection of the nervous system and a frequent cause of reactive seizures and epilepsy worldwide. In many cases, multiple episodes of focal seizures related to an identifiable parenchymal brain cyst (and likely attributable to local damage) continue for years after the cyst resolves.

In Latin America, an estimated 75 million persons live in endemic areas and 400,000 people have symptomatic disease. Some studies have found the seroprevalence in areas of Guatemala, Bolivia, and Peru as high as 20 percent in humans. In Ethiopia, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo around 10% of the population is infected, in Madagascar 16%.

Symptoms

The clinical manifestations of cysticercosis are highly variable both in kind and in severity. The period between initial infection and the onset of symptoms can also vary. People may have few or no symptoms for years as the eggs hatch and work their way round the body.  The diagnosis can be made by examining a cyst.   An increased number of a type of white blood cell, called eosinophils, in the cerebral spinal fluid and blood is also an indicator. 

Brain damage

A specific form called neurocysticercosis, which affects the brain, can cause neurological symptoms. Taking pictures of the brain with computer tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are most useful for the diagnosis of disease in the brain.  The term neurocysticercosis is generally accepted to refer to cysts in the parenchyma of the brain. Racemose neurocysticercosis refers to cysts in the subarachnoid space.  But the parasites can get everywhere:

Overall they can cause numerous forms of brain damage – Dementia, Alzheimer’s, hydrocephalus, meningitis, epilepsy, encephalitis, Parkinson’s and so on.  For example:

Muscles

Cysticerci can develop in any voluntary muscles in humans. Invasion of muscle by cysticerci can cause myositis [Myositis is inflammation or swelling of the muscles], with fever, eosinophilia, and muscular pseudohypertrophy [muscle weakness], which initiates with muscle swelling and later progress to atrophy and fibrosis.  There are links between this parasite and forms of muscular dystrophy.

They can cause multiple sclerosis, MS has more than one cause, but it is clear these parasites can be one:

There are apparent links between Cysticercosis and fibromyalgia.  And there have been suggestions of links with Chronic Fatigue syndrome.

Nervous system

Cysticercosis involving the spinal cord most commonly presents with back pain and radiculopathy.  Radiculopathy means that the parasite is attacking the nerves, affecting one or more nerves so that they do not work properly and the person initially experiences pain and/or weakness, numbness, tingling or difficulty controlling specific muscles.  Needless to say once it has reached the nervous system it can make its way via the blood stream to any of the nerves and a whole host of nervous system diseases can result.

Eyes

In some cases, cysticerci may be found in the eyeball, extraocular muscles, and under the conjunctiva (subconjunctiva). Depending on the location, they may cause visual difficulties that fluctuate with eye position, retinal oedema, haemorrhage, decreased vision or even a visual loss and blindness.

Liver

Kidneys

The parasites can attack the kidneys

[Kidney cysticercosis.- Wiwanitkit V. Urol Int. 2013;90(1):117. doi: 10.1159/000345296. Epub 2012 Nov 30. PMID: 23208199]

Skin

Subcutaneous cysts are in the form of firm, mobile nodules, occurring mainly on the trunk and extremities. Subcutaneous nodules are sometimes painful.  . In some cases, solid lumps of between one and two centimetres may develop under the skin.  After months or years these lumps can become painful and swollen and then apparently resolve, this does not mean the parasite has gone away, although if the immune system has been able to conquer them there may be cysts develop.  Occasionally they cause conditions such as urticarial cellulitis

Overall

We could in fact continue.  These parasites can travel round the body and thus damage every organ and from the papers on PubMed they do.  We feel that the damage this parasite can do is not being treated with sufficient alarm.  They are a very serious pathogen with the ability to attack every organ

Causes

Within the genus Taenia, three species are human parasites: T. solium, T. saginata and a new uncommon species, T. asiatica, described recently in Asia.

T. saginata and T. solium live as adult tapeworms in human intestines, where they cause taeniasis. T. saginata is widely present worldwide, in all regions where cattle are bred. T. solium is endemic in many countries where livestock and consumption of pigs are common.

Cattle and pigs become infected by ingesting eggs emitted by humans into the environment and serve as the respective intermediate hosts of these helminths and host larval forms, or metacestodes or cysticerci.

Cysticerci develop into adult worms in the human intestines after a person has eaten contaminated raw or undercooked meat, contaminated water or vegetables.

In T. solium, eggs are also human contaminants. Humans, like swine, can develop cysticercosis after ingesting eggs with water or contaminated food, or via dirty hands.  In other words, the cause of human cysticercosis is the egg form of Taenia solium (often abbreviated as T. solium and also called pork tapeworm), which is transmitted through the oral-fecal route.

The eggs enter the intestine where they develop into larvae. If the larvae manage to enter the bloodstream and invade host tissues, they further develop into larvae called cysticerci. The cysticercus larva completes its development in about 2 months. It is a semi-transparent, opalescent white, and elongate oval in shape and may reach a length of 0.6 to 1.8 cm.

Normally the intestine with its intestinal flora, the stomach with its gastric acid and the mouth with its own bacterial flora serve as a first line of defence in preventing infection with this parasite.  To get an infection something must be going wrong with the body’s first and second line of defences – we know the pathogen involved, but why should some people manage to defeat this pathogen and others don’t.

Overall there are four main ROOT causes

• Stress – and other negative emotions, which weaken the immune system and thus renders us unable to fight any excess bacteria that might arrive via contaminated food and water
• Nutritional deprivation – which similarly weakens the immune system
• Surgery   Removal of the gall bladder the source of bile acid, or surgery which damages our intestines, for example gastric band which reduces gut flora; or surgery which leaves us open temporarily to invaders, or plastic surgery.
• Pharmaceuticals, toxins and heavy metals

The latter causes will now be explored in more detail.

Pharmaceuticals

Antacids and Proton Pump Inhibitors

The eggs of  this parasite should besensitive to the stomach's normal production of hydrochloric acid: even if the food or water is infected badly, the stomach acid should kill the parasites.  Stress and negative emotion – grief, trauma, and so on all suppress stomach acid as such this is why negative emotions destroy our first line of defence.  But so can pharmaceuticals.  If people take antacid medication or proton pump inhibitors, they are at higher risk of contracting disease from a smaller amount of organisms, since this type of medication inhibits normal gastric acid.

Antibiotics in farming and medicine

Antibiotics are used in farming, and have been used completely indiscriminately by the medical profession.  They are used in farming to keep animals kept in inhumane conditions alive long enough so they can be sold as food, they are also used in farming to fatten animals – providing proof, if proof were needed, that antibiotics are implicated in obesity of people as well as animals.   They are used as a ‘preventative’, when they have no ability to prevent anything.  They are used for viral illnesses when they have no ability to tackle viruses.  The mis-use of antibiotics is probably one of the medical and farming profession’s most negligent acts.  Antibiotics destroy the balance of the intestinal flora and the mouth flora, as suchthey consequently weaken the intestine’s ability to contain the parasite within the gut. 

Once the intestines are compromised pathogens can destroy the lining of the intestines and enter the blood stream.  Nutritional deprivation serves to do the same thing, as it too can disrupt the healthy flora and reduce its protective role.

Immunosuppressants

Immunosuppressants suppress the immune system, which must be one of the most bizarre actions the medical profession undertake.  Suppression of the immune system increases the risk of infestation of the entire body. 

Mouthwashes

Mouthwashes with antibacterial properties affect the mouth's natural protection against pathogens

Anti-emetics 

Anti-emetics stop us vomiting out pathogens.  If we get an overdose of any pathogens, parasites or anything else and use anti-emetics, then the parasite simply enters the stomach and intestines.

Anti-diarrhoea medication

Diarrhoea is the natural flushing mechanism of the body, enabling it to remove parasites or other pathogens.  By using any medication that stops us pooing out pathogens we have effectively given them free access to do as much damage as they wish.

Antihistamines 

For example cough medicines or nasal sprays, that dry up a runny nose.  The runniness of noses and the sticky fluid used is designed to trap pathogens and prevent them from entering the body.  By using anti-histamines we remove our natural defences and parasites can enter via the nose, affecting the nose and via the olfactory organs enter the brain

Diuretics

Diuretics are intended to flush water away from the body.  But that water may be needed and be being used to flush pathogens away.  The body may actually be storing water in cells in order to have enough supplies to do the flushing.  Use a diuretic and your oedema – a symptom after all not a cause – may appear to be better.  On the other hand, the parasites now in your intestines may be breeding like crazy because the body has no water to flush them away.

Toxins -Pesticides, insecticides, defoliants and herbicides

There are now very clear links between the use of pesticides, insecticides, herbicides and the sorts of defoliants used to harvest peas and potatoes on non organic farms; and the destruction of the intestinal flora of animals – including humans.  As mentionned above if we destroy the flora we have destroyed our natural defences against this parasite.  There are a considerable number of published papers on this now, this is a recent one:

Prevention

Avoid the causes

From the above you can see what causes the problems, thus you are in a position to be able to avoid these sources of illness.

Go organic

Consumption of organic foods may help to reduce exposure to toxins such as pesticide, antibiotic-resistant bacteria and the bacteria used in farming.

Sanitation and cleanliness

Cysticercosis is usually acquired in the first place  by eating food or drinking water contaminated by tapeworm eggs from human faeces. Among foods, uncooked vegetables are the major source. The tapeworm eggs are present in the faeces of a person infected with the adult worms, a condition known as taeniasis.  People who live with someone with the pork tapeworm thus have a greater risk of getting cysticercosis.

Infection can be effectively prevented by personal hygiene and sanitation: this includes cooking meat well, proper toilets and sanitary practices, and improved access to clean water.

Treatment

Prevention is better than cure, but avoiding stress, relaxation, meditation and mindfulness, all help to keep the immune system working.  As it says above, go organic and eat well, to ensure the body restores its intestinal floral balance and defences.

There are pharmaceuticals – but the side-effects can be most unpleasant and they are not guaranteed to find all the parasites if they are in your body.  Only your body can help you fight these and as a consequence you need to ensure you give the body all the nutrients, sleep, relaxation and help its needs to work for you.

Related observations

Healing observations

• Bovine cysticercosis in Denmark. A study of possible causes of infection in farms with heavily infected animals 026302
• Brain-Invading Tapeworm That Eluded Doctors Spotted by New DNA Test Genetic sequencing of spinal fluid hailed as an advance over standard procedures for diagnosing brain infections 026293
• Cysticidal activity of extracts and isolated compounds from Teloxys graveolens: In vitro and in vivo studies 026300
• Intracranial cysticercosis: an effective treatment with alternative medicines 026301
• Mini review on chemotherapy of taeniasis and cysticercosis due to Taenia solium in Asia, and a case report with 20 tapeworms in China 026298
• Usefulness of pumpkin seeds combined with areca nut extract in community-based treatment of human taeniasis in northwest Sichuan Province, China 026299

Hallucination

• A Mexican case of massive nonencephalitic neurocysticercosis 026295
• Cysticercosis producing various neurological presentations in a patient: case report 026291
• Migraine-like visual hallucinations in occipital lesions of cysticercosis 026294
• Neurocysticercosis presenting as schizophrenia: a case report 026296
• Neurocysticercosis presenting with psychosis 026297
• Neurocysticercosis. Current review of the literature based on a long-term study of 2 clinically distinct German cases 026289
• PubMed paper - West New Guinea tapeworm epilepsy & psychoses 006121
• Temporal lobe involvement in Capgras syndrome 026290
• You drive me crazy: a case report of acute psychosis and neurocysticercosis 026288

Out of time

Near death, Out of time, Out of body, Rebirth

• Temporal lobe involvement in Capgras syndrome 026290