A woman in the UK reportedly developed 38 brain parasites, which her doctor believes she developed after contracting a tapeworm during a three-month-long trip to India.
What had happened?
In 2007, the now 42-year-old Lowri Denman visited India and explored different parts of the country. According to her, she avoided meat during the trip. It was almost three years after her trip that she discovered she had a problem when she passed a meter-long tapeworm while using the bathroom in a restaurant, reported the BBC.
Her doctor, Dr Brendan Healy, a consultant in infectious diseases and microbiology, believes that she unknowingly ate pork that contained microscopic tapeworm eggs during her India trip, which caused the parasitic infection neurocysticercosis.
When did the sickness start?
After passing the tapeworm, she visited a doctor, but her stool tests came back satisfactory, and she went on with her normal life. At that point, she was feeling well and showed no symptoms. However, within a year, she started suffering from terrible headaches.
“I was really starting to struggle getting some words out,” she told the BBC. Denman added, “The next thing I came around and I was in an ambulance and I was like ‘how has that happened? Why?'”
What happened next?
The hospital administered various tests, and the doctor found that she had 38 parasites in her brain. Recalling the moment, the woman told the outlet, “The doctor sat me down and said, ‘right, okay, we’ve looked at your scans and we’ve found 38 parasites on your brain’,” adding, “Me and my mum were just jaws on the floor like, ‘what on earth, what is that?'”
Initially, the doctor thought she was suffering from toxoplasmosis. However, when the mother questioned if it was due to the tapeworm that was discovered a year earlier, she was diagnosed with neurocysticercosis.
What is neurocysticercosis?
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), it is a parasitic infection of the central nervous system caused by the pork tapeworm. Humans are infected by consuming undercooked food, particularly pork. It can also be caused by water contaminated with tapeworm eggs.
According to the BBC, neurocysticercosis is extremely rare in the UK and is only seen in those who have migrated from endemic regions.
“Paranoia and psychosis”
After the discovery, she was put on anti-parasitic drugs and steroids, which initially worked well. However, soon her condition turned worse and she collapsed at her work. A scan showed huge swellings on her brain. At this point, she also started getting confused and experiencing numbness and tingling in her body. She eventually was forced to move in with her father.
“This paranoia and psychosis started kicking in… there was severe anxiety, panic attacks,” Lowri told the outlet. “I spiralled a lot,” she recalled. She continued, “My family were losing their mind with how things escalated. Friends were coming and seeing me in such a terrible state.”
One of her friends, who recalled seeing her at the time, said, “I walked into the room and she was essentially behaving like a child.”
“Crawling around on the floor, hiding behind a curtain, sitting on her dad’s lap as if she was five.”
How is she doing now?
Though recovery had been a long road since then, she had gradually become better. As for the parasites, they have calcified in her brain.
“I’ve not had any surgery to actually take them out of my brain,” she said, adding, “Apparently they just sort of die down and they calcify basically. So at this point they are now calcified.”
The 42-year-old has not experienced a seizure since 2017, but she remains on epilepsy medication and has to do so for the rest of her life.
“What I want to do now is progress in my life and spread awareness of this disease and do something positive with it,” she said.
She explained, “You don’t know what’s around the corner… I’m happy to be alive and healthy and fit again and I never take that for granted.”
