Tapeworms found through endoscopy?

[Sambina_88]

Hi, I'm new here and I'm hoping someone can give me some info. I'm 19 and I've been having a lot of gastrointestinal complaints. Such as stomach cramps, mucus in stool, hard stool that sometimes cause me to bleed, I have heartburn almost every night. Gurgling in my throat after I eat. It's like all this pressure in my throat. Like I constantly need to burp. I'm also passing gas...a lot. Also, ever since I was little, I would get vomiting episodes. but before I actually threw up, about an hour or 2 before I would burp, but it would smell of rotten eggs (which I think I heard is hydrogen sulfur). I've heard those rotten egg burps are sometimes associated with gastroparesis. I've also gotten dizzy spells off and on since I was little as well.

Anyway, for about 2 months, I've been seeing these white things embedded in my stool. At first I didn't think anything of them. I thought maybe it was just indigested food. But lately, my clothes have been fitting more looser than usual (not a dramatic loss of weight) it doesn't even say on the scale that I'm losing weight. Anyway, I've been tired more often, sometimes I have no appetite at all, other times I'm starving. And other times I feel too nauseous to eat food. I've been to a gastroenterologist, and he thinks that I have IBS. He tested my thryoid and celiac levels. My celiac levels were slightly elevated but nothing to be alarmed at. My white cell count was all slightly elevated. Mine was like 10.9 or something.But he wants to do a colonoscopy and an endoscopy. He also knows that I have severe OCD and hypochondria.

Ok, I promise I'm going somewhere with this story. I saw on google what proglottids (segments of tapeworms) look like and they look just like what I'm seeing. Plus it explains a lot of my symptoms. I called and told my gastroenterologist but he said that I'm probably just seeing mucus and that it's really rare, and stuff like that. It seemed as if he didn't want to listen to me. So I called my pediatrician (who isn't even my doctor anymore) and he was nice enough to send me a stool kit so he can send it out to see what's going on. My question is, do you think the doctor would be able to see tapeworms during an endoscopy? Do you think I should try and find another doctor since it seemed like he didn't even want to be bothered with what I'm saying? He's been in the practice for 30 years. Also, I've been hearing so many stories about people contracting infectious diseases like HIV and Hepatitis  because of using used needles and not properly cleaning the tools. How likely is it do you think I might catch something horrible like that? I'm very unsure of what to do. I also live in baltimore maryland if that helps at all.


Thanks for any help you can give me!

[austen818]

Hi, I don't know if this is much help, but I am having some of the same symptoms as you: dizzy, nauseous, weak, white specks in stool. It is all very strange and the white specks indicate something is there that shouldn't be, in my opinion. I had an endoscopy done yesterday and endoscopies do not detect worms very well if you do have them. The procedure just looks at the stomach and top of the small intestine, whereas the worms would probably be much deeper in the intestines. Don't have all the answers, but thought I'd answer your endoscopy question. I think I might try some herbal remedies. Good luck!