The Puffer Forum

Pufferpunk wrote:I beleve in the olden days, women used tapeworms as a weight loss remedy. EEEEEEWWWWWW!!!

That is true. *shudder* "Here, swallow this, it's a quick weight loss! Don't worry, the wiggling will stop soon."

actually they wouldn't tell them. they just gave people a pill (eggs) and told them to come back on a regular basis, then after a while they gave them another pill and told them to stay close to the toilet...

Dadof4 wrote:

Ditto!

Now, just how dangerous is being wormed for humans?

Actually not very. The meds are a little harsh and the end result troubling but, if you have a good book and a soft seat you're good to go.

Being wormed, or being DE-wormed?

ROFL.. seriously though, I would think its the same as for fish.. a healthy specimen would tolerate it pretty well, though of course they'd have some pretty bad intestional discomfort if they had a heavy load. But the healthier the host, the harder of a time the parasite will have really doing damage and reproducing. Its when they are sick and stressed that the parasites can go hog wild and get out of control. I have a friend who picked something up years ago from her horses.. all her doc could figure out was she picked up some eggs when she was kissing their noses or something like that. She said it was no fun, but it wasn't the most horrible experience she's ever had either.

I know with horses, its pretty rare for them to have any issues at all unless they were really, really heavily infested, or they get too large of a dose for their bodyweight of a strong type of dewormer.

I've seen it in humans, most of the problems arise from the actual medication, mainly the non-serious side effects like ringing ears, metallic taste in mouth, itching, nausea....

I wonder how long they lived with those worms eating all their food?
http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2007/ ... eworms.php
http://health.howstuffworks.com/tapewor ... t-loss.htm
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/vanities/tapeworm.asp

My brother lives in St Thomas & has no health insurance. The medical care for him is extremely poor. He says he has some sort of parasite in his digestive system he can't get rid of. In addition to the Malaria he has, I'm sure it will eventually sadly end in his early demise...

Oh, that's so sad.
Maybe this is stupid, but does the same meds that work for puffers work for people too? Like metronidazole or something?

Oh PP, that's so sad.

My brother's choice of lifestyle. He's a fantastic chef but ht's also an alcoholic & doesn't take very good care of himself. He also keeps falling off that mountain he lives on top of.

That's sad PP.