Sharing this at the end of a 6-month saga of trying desperately to rid our family of worms, a battle which we have finally won thank god! My son brought them home from nursery and they spread to the whole family. Started taking Ovex fortnightly and washing hands more but this only gave a few days of relief before the itching came back. I was up for hours at night with it, the only relief I could get was a midnight shower and cold flannel on the affected area. My 4yo also started having accidents having been potty trained for years, which I'm sure was linked. GP was no help, just told us to keep going with the standard treatment. Having tried EVERYTHING I read online, this is what finally worked:
- Washing washing washing - deep cleaned the house, Dettol wipes over every door handle and toy, bedding washed every other day, underwear changed twice a day, pajama bottoms changed every day. Children bathed morning and evening, and nail brushes by every sink and bath/shower so they were used every hand wash. Most important bit is a thorough wash first thing, to get rid of any eggs laid overnight and any that might be under nails from nighttime scratching
- Surgical gloves - bought a pack of 100 and used them for every toilet trip, bottom wipe, nappy change and all contact with food, especially preparing lunch and breakfast where the food is uncooked. Obviously use once and throw away immediately! Do this in addition to hand washing as it's still easy to absent mindedly touch your face during the day
- Ovex - I figured, if it's safe to take this 6 times over 3 days for tapeworms, it ought to be safe to take it 6 times over a fortnight. We all took one every other day, the theory being that if any eggs were slipping through the net, we'd kill each worm as it hatched before it could lay any more eggs. I also figured, while this is a high dose, it's less than taking fortnightly tablets forever!! Obviously this is not medical advice, just sharing my own approach
- After a fortnight, STOP! This is key, I definitely felt as if my symptoms had not improved by this point, but the kids seemed much better and I'm sure my itching was a result of over-washing combined with the damage caused by previous scratching. Having read similar experiences I forced myself back to daily showers and about a week after stopping the course of Ovex, the itching stopped completely.
Touch wood we've now been symptom-free for 2 months, thank god, and having found so much helpful advice online from others, I thought I'd share this in case it can help someone else!!