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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU re threadworm taboo

31 replies

Ihateworms · 28/04/2017 23:37

I hate threadworms, I really do but what I hate even more than the critters themselves is that when I'm utterly exhausted at the party we're going to tomorrow because my DD's been screaming all night that they itch/hurt I won't be able to tell anyone. There's such a taboo about it and I just don't get. It's so so common and yet whenever I have mentioned it to anyone they've looked at me like we've got the plague and live in squalor. They then proceed to tell me that their little darlings have never had it. Actually they've never heard of anyone having had it. And yet supposedly up to half of children under 10 have it at any one time.

AIBU? And any magic tips to stop her getting it again? Obviously we've done the standard (tablet for the whole family and another ready for two weeks, cleaned, clean sheets, clean towels, pants on under PJs etc etc).

OP posts:

Emma2803 · 28/04/2017 23:47

Boil wash what ever soft furnishings you can and hoover every day if you can. Nails cut as short as you can. Scrub hands and nails after the loo and before eating.
Worms are so common with little ones!! At least it's not scabies!!!

Verbena37 · 28/04/2017 23:49

The can't pick them up the eggs) everywhere....school door handles etc so even being really strict at home, it's not to say they won't get them.

The pharmacist told me there's not much need for parents to take the tablets unless they know they're infected....because our bodies tend to pass them or something. Not sure if that's right though.

Pinkandwhiteblossoms · 28/04/2017 23:50

I certainly wouldn't bring it up as a topic of conversation! I wouldn't worry, jus keep downing the Ovex. I get them a lot, just an occupational hazard of small children

RitaMills · 28/04/2017 23:57

My DS has them at the moment, seems to be every few months he gets them. And yes the comments are very annoying, my mum especially always asks what I'm doing wrong as 'you and your brothers never had them'. 🙄

ThreeLeggedHaggis · 29/04/2017 00:01

I remember the shame when I got them in my teens! I told the pharmacist they were for my (fictional) younger brother... not sure she believed me.

I did have quite a visceral reaction to them though, when I realised there were these awful little worms living inside me. I never felt like that about head lice or external parasites.

And of course, their spread is mostly due to poor hygiene (hand washing), which is embarrassing - even if it was probably poor hygiene from the person who gave them to you rather than poor hygiene from you.

Original poster

Ihateworms · 29/04/2017 00:01

Yep, Rita, that's what my PIL think and so everyone time it happens I feel judged.

It probably doesn't help that both DC suck they're thumbs.

OP posts:

Original poster

Ihateworms · 29/04/2017 00:01

their even

OP posts:

Witchend · 29/04/2017 00:10

My dm would say we'd never had them. I was just embarrassed and never told her.

My best tip though if you've a young dc with them: Put a huge dollop of sudocreme on the anus. It stops them getting out to lay the eggs and it soothes the itching.

Verbena37 · 29/04/2017 00:10

they can pick them up anywhere- I meant

seoulsurvivor · 29/04/2017 00:14

Come to Korea. Every year, around the same time, people take an anti worming pill (because it was a poor country til recently, and also because of eating a lot of barbecued pork).

People openly discuss it and couldn't care less if you know they've had worms. As soon as you say 'oh I'm a little tired', people ask if you took the pill.

The attitude towards stuff like that here is so refreshing. I used to be so embarrassed and now I'm worried that I'm going to move back to the UK and be a really annoyingly open person who foists information about their bowel movements on everyone.

sticklebrix · 29/04/2017 00:14

Our doctor said that a third of young children at any one time have worms of one kind or another, usually threadworms Not all kids notice or experience symptoms. I would be up for a dog-style worming regime, personally, but apparently this isn't the done thing.

OP, we only broke the cycle of regular infections when my DC stopped thumb sucking.

seoulsurvivor · 29/04/2017 00:16

Also, my husband finds it hilarious that I'm embarrassed to go to the doctor about anything like that. He was flabbergasted that I'd never had a colonoscopy, they get them here as part of normal check ups and he couldn't see why I'd be embarrassed.

Although his friend once got one from a nurse he'd been on a date with...bit of a different situation.

RitaMills · 29/04/2017 00:17

We've put it down to thumb sucking too, DS is 7 so it's not constant but when he's concentrating (school) or when he's sleepy the thumb still goes in the mouth, total habit.

lenny2011 · 29/04/2017 00:20

So true - I was plagued by them as a child (thumb sucker too). Have caught them a few times as an adult and minute I feel the itch I get the torch and go looking at bum holes in the dark - boak!
Would never divulge willingly that we were a worm infected family although have admired to having them once 🤔 in friend confided in me her parasite shame!

lenny2011 · 29/04/2017 00:21

Admired???? I mean admitted !!!

Huldra · 29/04/2017 00:28

I had never really heard about them until I had kids myself. Thinking back as a child I can remember several times being in pain with an itchy bum, along with my siblings, and parents shouting at us because it must be us not wiping properly blah blah blah we were dirty that's why our bums were sore. Looking back it was probably thread worms.

I'm in my mid 40's and have grandparents in their 90's and 100's. You'd think it was a common thing that was known about? Or maybe not, my Mums family background were a bit nuts.

My boys have never had nits, well never anything for us to notice, we used to check everytime the nit letters got sent home from school. It's not anything we did to prevent it, they just never had itchy heads. We've had quite a few attacks of threadworms tho.

The first time it happened we didn't know what it was until we were all complaining very badly. After some googling (google was just about a thing then) we had a look that night at my eldest Oh god!!! I still remember the wriggling and stinging. We washed everything, again and again, got tablets and were very careful for a while. It all cleared up.

From then we had quite a few episodes of night itchyness but we sprung into action as soon as he got upset. It always seemed to happen when school started, or we went away. I wonder if he reacted particuarly badly to them because we could almost use him as a timetable or canary. Every start of term, one week later he would start to scratch. The day he started to whine was the time family emergency measures were put in place. We ended up taking worming pills on holiday just in case, well that was after a campsite in France one year.

I don't know if he reacted badly to them so was more likely to scratch, therefore more likely to have them under his finger nails, and that never ends well. They're always in us and around us but infestations are usually pretty self limiting. My other son never seemed to react in the same way.

What we found helped was a good layer of vaseline around the area and telling them it's ok to scratch but do it through pants. We havn't had a problem for years since they left the first years of primary.

AlmostAJillSandwich · 29/04/2017 00:30

I don't think i've ever had them, if i did as a child my parents certainly didn't tell me about it as i got older. Likewise nobody i live with has ever had them that i know of, but beyond that, i couldn't tell you if family, friends, friends kids etc have them or have had them.
I remember as a kid it was mortifying to have lice, and i had those a few times. I can see why an internal parasite as opposed to an external one would be even more taboo to talk about.

But as long as you make sure your child washes their hands properly after the loo and scratches through clothing if need be and not directly unless they can wash their hands right after then i wouldn't worry about catching them off someone visiting etc.

Huldra · 29/04/2017 00:41

I see someone mentioned sudocrem, yup anything oily and thick that doesn't iritate the skin. It sooths and the they can't get out.

That camping trip in France I reached for olive oil, he started to moan and it was the best we had. We do what we have to.

GinSwigmore · 29/04/2017 00:56

Not in UK so have to get Ovex from Amazon.
Wonderful then to see family pack coming up as Recommended for you.
Was not aware we had bought so frigging many.
Reader, had I been on Facebook I would have written Status: wormy
[wink]

GinSwigmore · 29/04/2017 01:05

Damn, there was a vermicious thread the other week with a bloody funny blog or fb entry, cannot link to it...maybe someone else can about what wine to drink with ovex. It did make me laugh.
One of the first threads I read on here though was the Walking Wormery one with some kind of vegan who was against animal cruelty so wouldn't medicate? Better standard of trolling in those days. And Cuntworms...that was a thread I wanted to bleach from memory.

GinSwigmore · 29/04/2017 01:10

Tips...strict hygiene and no thumb sucking/nail biting. Carrot juice and lots of garlic in diet (if they can stomach it), reduce sugar intake. Notify childcare/school if they have shared sandbox/playdo/crayons...they can then put in new sand, chuck the playdo, wipe the crayons and be mitre scrupulous with taos and door handles.

GinSwigmore · 29/04/2017 01:12

more scrupulous with taps
(Not sure a tao is going to cut it somehow. I don't find worms very enlightening).

CrohnicallyPregnant · 29/04/2017 03:30

I remember a couple of years ago, my 5 year old niece stayed over one night and was up crying about an itchy bottom. SIL went up to her and had a look and shouted me in a panic wondering what these white wriggly things were- she had never heard of threadworms despite working in a nursery!

HappySeven · 29/04/2017 08:06

Do you do the two doses two weeks apart to ensure any eggs you'd already swallowed are killed when they turn into worms but before they're old enough to lay eggs themselves? Our pharmacist told us to do that and it seems to have worked whereas a friend didn't know and her DD just kept reinfecting herself.

On the bright side though I've read a book called Gut (really interesting about all the bacteria that live in your digestive system which we're only just starting to learn about) that says that if you have worms as a child you're less likely to develop type 2 diabetes as an adult. Every cloud...

sticklebrix · 29/04/2017 09:00

HappySeven ooh yes, I've heard that too. The same doc that told me about 1/3 of kids having worms at any given time said that worms are an important experience for the childhood immune system.

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