Grossed out and scared

So, there's apparently an outbreak of tapeworm at our office! The cleaning woman found a couple of toilets with fecal matter and worms! She thinks it was a patient but now we are all on alert.

1. Who the f is not flushing?!
2. How the h do you have tapeworm and not know it?!

Now I'm freaking out because I'm still throwing up at 19 weeks. I hope I'm not sick! And now all of us have to get tested!!!

Oh, and now I'm afraid to use any bathroom! I walk 5 minutes to the hospital to use the bathroom, which is definitely not clean either!

Re: Grossed out and scared

You can only get tapeworm from food or water that is contaminated...Gross...

A tapeworm infection starts after ingestion of tapeworm eggs or larvae.

* Ingestion of eggs. If you eat food or drink water contaminated with feces from a person or animal with tapeworm, you are ingesting microscopic tapeworm eggs. For example, a pig infected with tapeworm will pass tapeworm eggs in its feces, which gets into the soil. If this same soil comes in contact with a food or water source, it becomes contaminated. You can then be infected when you eat or drink something from the contaminated source. Once inside your intestine, the eggs develop into larvae. At this stage, the larvae become mobile. If they migrate out of your intestines, they form cysts in other tissues such as your lungs or liver. Invasive tapeworm infection is more common with pork tapeworm than with the other kinds.
*

Ingestion of larvae cysts in meat or muscle tissue. When an animal has a tapeworm infection, it has tapeworm larvae in its muscle tissue. If you eat raw or undercooked meat from an infected animal, you ingest the larvae, which then develop into adult tapeworms in your intestines.

Adult tapeworms can measure up to 50 feet long and can survive as long as 20 years in a host. Some tapeworms attach themselves to the walls of the intestine, where they cause irritation or mild inflammation, while others may pass through to your stool and exit your body...

Re: Grossed out and scared

wow that is kind of gross! I think as long as you still wash your hands and such you really should not be able to catch them like that. . my sister had one once from travelling in Vietnam but never passed it on to anyone - even people she lived with. .

Still you are right - someone is GROSS!

Re: Grossed out and scared

ewww - and i'd be puking in a bag instead of that nasty toilet.

Re: Grossed out and scared

As BAM said, you can only get it from ingesting an infected source, but I'd still be wickedly skeeved.

Plus if I'm remembering my Bio class correctly (I'm probably not the best source...preggo brain is hitting really hard lol), with tape worm you eat like it is going out of style, but you lose a lot of weight for seemingly no reason, because the tapeworm is stealing all of the nutrition from you. So I wouldn't be worried about the fact that you are still throwing up being related to tapeworm...that's just the *joys* of pregnancy.

Re: Grossed out and scared

GROSS!

Re: Grossed out and scared

Oh my goodness! I am thinking about it right now!

Re: Grossed out and scared

Are you sure it's tapeworm? I thought tapeworms were one big long worm that stays in your digestive tract. If it's multiple worms it might be something else.

Re: Grossed out and scared

If you had any sort of worms, you would most likely not be losing a fair amount of weight. Let you doctor know, but you are probably fine!

Re: Grossed out and scared

ewwwwwwwwwwww.. try to be as careful as possible please!!!!!!