**Warning: graphic pictures! Photos in this article have been provided by OMDetox clients. Some of these images contain feces.
Everybody can have parasites. There are different types of intestinal worms that can live in your gut and feed off your nutrients. They appear in all shapes and forms, and can make you very ill.
These parasites get passed around very easily. You can catch intestinal worms just by shaking the hand of your friend or consuming contaminated food or water. Kids regularly get them at school, and let’s not forget our beloved pet animals that can bring back all sorts of worms into the house.
When people try our cleanse at home with the intention of losing a few pounds, cleaning their gut and improving their digestion, they have no idea of what they may see coming out of their colon!
What a surprise to see a big worm floating in the toilet after a few days of fasting!
Types of intestinal worms that come out during a detox
Roundworms
The most common intestinal worms we see during our 7 day cleanse are part of the large roundworm family, the nematodes. These long, gel-like worms are called Ascaris and they can measure 15 to 35 cm. When they are flushed out during an enema, they look like slime, often white, green or yellowish.
Ascaris infections affect 1 billion people worldwide. They are usually caught when someone eats food that was grown in a soil that contained human waste, or when someone eats raw food that was cleaned with contaminated water.
Traveling to a tropical destination often results in an Ascaris infection, because the water there has not been treated with chlorine. Here in developed countries, we treat our water to avoid such infections. When the water contains Ascaris eggs, they are ingested and can start their life cycle in the human host.
The symptoms of having Ascaris intestinal worms include coughing, shortness of breath, abdominal pain or cramps, weight loss or weight gain, fatigue, strong body odour, slow digestion and other digestive problems.
“ I traveled through Thailand and Malaysia. After a few months, I became very tired and I repeatedly felt like I was getting a cold. I gained weight, I had intense sugar cravings, and I had no energy to workout. I had to deal with constant bloating and pain after each meal, it was a real nightmare! I did the detox and flushed hundreds of worms. It was disgusting.”
-OMDetox customer
Pictures of intestinal worms flushed out during an enema
Tapeworms
Another type of worm we often see during the OMDetox cleanse is the tapeworm. And you don’t have to travel to Africa to get one!
Tapeworms are very common in developed countries because they are passed around through our food, from eating pork, beef and fish.
Pork tapeworms (T. solium) and beef tapeworms (T. saginata) affect more than 60 million people around the globe. They can measure 3 to 8 meters. People infected with these types of tapeworm usually eat raw or undercooked meat. Live eggs are still present in the flesh of the animals so, after being ingested, they can start living in the small intestine of the host and lay more eggs.
Remember, a steak tartar or a rare filet mignon may be very trendy and tasty, but it is the best way to get infected with a worm.
The largest tapeworms found in humans are called “Broad” tapeworms. They come from the parasite Diphyllobothrium latum. These intestinal worms are very common in America, Eastern Europe and Scandinavian countries, where we eat fish.
People ingest the eggs when eating sushi or raw fish, from fresh water or farms. This kind of tapeworm can measure up to 15 meters in length!!! They can discharge very large numbers of eggs per day and can live for many years inside a human host.
The usual symptoms of fish tapeworms include diarrhea or constipation, abdominal pain, chronic hunger, weakness and anemia. However, many people will not suspect having a tapeworm infection, because they will blame their symptoms on other causes.
There are other types of intestinal worms, such as pinworms, ringworms, hookworms and whipworms. They usually measure less than a centimetre, so they are more difficult to see.
Pinworms in kids
In America, the most common intestinal worms are the pinworms. They are the ones that cause an itchy anus. They are usually passed around after scratching your bum and not washing your hands properly. The eggs are on the fingers of the infected person and are passed to the next person with a hand shake or through an object like cutlery, a towel or a door handle.
Kids regularly get infected with pinworms at school and playgrounds. They share toys and food, they don’t wash their hands and they often put their fingers in their mouth. Pinworm eggs can survive for hours on an object or on your hands so they easily spread! 1 child out of 3 in America will once be infected with pinworms.
If you have pinworms, you’re likely to get an itchy anus at night. This is actually the time when the females come out and lay their eggs around the anus, causing the itchiness.
So, if you have any of the following symptoms, you should check for parasites by getting a stool sample done at the hospital. Be aware that many tests will come back negative, even if you are infected with worms. This is because parasites are sometimes dormant and are not easy to detect.
You can also try our 7 day detox and colon cleanse program, which will help you flushing out worms like the ones on the pictures.
Symptoms of intestinal worms
- Constipation
- Abdominal pain
- Bloating
- Diarrhea
- Gas
- Itchy anus
- Hair Loss
- Irritability
- Weight gain
- Fatigue
- Insomnia
- Constant hunger
- Sugar cravings
- Iron-deficiency anemia
- Migraines
- Worms in the stool
- Skin rashes
- Inability to gain weight
Some people have parasites for years without having any symptoms. Most of the people that send us these pictures of worms had no idea that they had them living inside their gut.
We often attribute our symptoms to other ailments. We think that our discomforts are caused by our diet or our stressful lives. Intestinal worms are real and they can make us miserable. If we do not eliminate them right away, we allow them to multiply in our gut and make us ill.
There are several parasite treatments available, depending on the type of worm you are infected with. Along with a fasting and colon cleansing program, it is recommended to take a natural parasite treatment that contain wormwood, black walnut and clove.