If you’re no stranger to migraine, you know that headaches sometimes just happen. But if they’re a certain type of headache, you may want to seek medical attention for it sooner rather than later.
Otherwise, you may end up like Yadira Rostro, who only ended up in the hospital after putting it off during months of blurred vision and headaches.
When the doctors went in to investigate, they found something that sounds like it should be on some gross medical stories show. They found not one, not two, but EIGHT tapeworm larvae in her brain.
They had worked their way into her bloodstream and into her brain. And as they grew, they made fluid back up in her brain and caused blurred vision and headache.
What most likely happened, said doctors, is that she got the tapeworms from consuming food containing fecal matter on her trip to Mexico.
So this was just a freak accident, right? Something that rarely ever happens?
Wrong. Garni Barkhoudarian, a neurosurgeon at Providence St. John’s Brain Tumor Center, told Women’s Health Magazine that he’s seen not just one, but several cases of tapeworm in the brain.
It has a medical name too: neurocysticercosis. While it’s usually treatable, it takes brain surgery and antibiotics to get rid of it.
The great news is that by living in the U.S., you’re already decreasing your risk of it. Because it’s most common in developing countries where food contamination is more likely to happen, you’re unlikely to get it on a day to day basis.
But if you’re traveling to a developing country, take extra precaution with the foods you eat. Extra care should be taken with pork, and you should wash your hands thoroughly and often.
