AIBU to give up and let the bum worms win?

[BumWormFatigue]

Seven blissful weeks ago, I'd never heard of pinworms / threadworms. Then our toddler was beside himself trying to itch his bum one night, and after researching and looking in everyone's poo, I confirmed pinworms in all four of us 🤢.

Bought Ovex and dosed the household. Cut nails, boil washed everything, thorough showers and fresh towels every morning for everyone. Shampooed the carpet, bought new pillows for the children etc etc. We all take our shoes off and wash hands when coming home anyway, but also bought a nail brush for added thoroughness.

10 days later, toddler up again trying to scratch. GP recommends early 2nd dose, which we all have. Same again two weeks later. We still all have pinworms.

I am sick of laundry and getting up early to shower two furious small children before nursery. The cure is beginning to feel worse than the disease, seeing as three of us are asymptomatic, and the toddler is only bothered periodically. A bit of piriton and sudocrem on his bumhole seems to sort it on nights he is bad. Also, I've spent an absolute fortune on Ovex, which is money we don't have.

So AIBU to just ignore the problem? Or should I carry on all the extra cleaning / getting up early / Ovex indefinitely?

Any miracle cures for the little buggars appreciated too, if anyone has one.

OP don’t give up! I was in your position a few months ago, I have 3 kids and had a blissful 7 years of parenting before dealing with the horrid little blighters.

in the end we have to take 3 lots of doses (so one and then again a fortnight later), but eventually we were clear.

I found you have to be careful when undressing so as not to spill eggs anywhere, and change bed sheets, knickers and PJs for the first couple of nights after a dose, as well as handwashing. I hid soft toys for a couple of weeks too as the eggs can survive that long.

Him being potty trained isn’t the issue. Good hygiene with his own toilet habits will stop him passing worms on to other people. It won’t stop him catching them. Since he got them first it’s likely it’s someone else in his nursery class that he keeps catching them from. Nursery need to know so that they can ask all parents to treat.

You are already doing more than enough to get rid of them. The problem is the repeated reinfection. Unfortunately young children put their hands in their mouths an awful lot, which is how you catch them. Someone else is spreading the eggs, and he’s putting them in his mouth. In your position I’d look into whether you can use that nasty tasting nail polish to stop kids biting their nails on one so young. You can beg and plead with other people to treat their kids, but ultimately you don’t have any control over that. I always assumed it’s impossible to keep a toddlers hands out of their mouth, but I might be trying to make it possible if I’d been dealing with what you have.

I’ve been fortunate in that my kids have never had worms. Or nits. Just really really lucky. I did have worms a few times when young. It got to the point where my mum would give us medicine every 4 months regardless of symptoms. It was horrible. We called it pink medicine. It was nasty chalky powder that was dissolved in water. When a bit older I remember huge yellow chalky tablets. Mum used to crush them and give us the tablets with a spoonful of jam.
you have my sympathy. Worms are horrible.

We have a few repeat bouts and I was pulling my hair out,

Make sure you tell nursery so they can bin play dough sand etc and make sure you do same.

I sympathise though, it's shit

Nits are much worse because there's no medicine that really works.

Thread worms are fairly easy to get rid of with multiple doses so I suspect you are being reinfected somehow.

Also - boots sell their own brand of the meds at about £8 for 4 tables, a considerable bargain compared to branded ovex!!

That pink medicine. Put me right off strawberry sweets and milkshake.
I was a thumb sucker and regularly needed dosing. I don't remember taking multiple doses or sheet washing.

You need to be extremely strict with hygiene. Toddlers bedding needs to be washed often. I would also take ovex every week for 4 weeks ( my doctors recommended this) hot wash any teddies and soak/disinfect toys. I found after cleaning them that it was easier to bag a load up and have a few out for the next few weeks rather than constantly cleaning loads of toys. Tell school/nursery to send letters out if any of your children attend one.

Wash the bedding and towels in a boil wash then just keep doing everyone on a schedule . Twice a month until you think they’ve gone then everyone every six months whether you have symptoms or … my seasoned advice!

We did two doses of Ovex a fortnight apart but the first had already worked, second was belt and braces. Washed sheets and trimmed nails but none of this shampooing carpets and stuff. I think you’re getting reinfected.

DS was our patient zero and I’m convinced from the timing he got them by eating the playdough at messy playgroup. Didn’t infect the rest of us; I think nappies and the constant bum wiping forms a good containment system. Figure out the source!

People are talking about redosing regularly with ovex but isn't that meant to make the worms resistant to it...? I'm sure I remember a pharmacist saying something like that once.

It wasn't strawberry, it was raspberry, and it was PRIPSEN.

The reason why I have never eaten a raspberry nor a raspberry flavoured anything for 40 odd years.

We had a bit of a nightmare with them at one point. The following seemed to help us

• everyone in underpants and pj bottoms when sleeping. Taken off only in bathroom and straight into a carrier bag, into the washing machine.

• Bums washed every morning with a new flannel (straight in the bag).

• I always wash my hands after loading the washing machine and before pressing buttons (I suspect i was reinfecting myself here as I seemed to suffer the most)

Basically I was trying to keep everything contained to the bathtub to avoid spreading eggs around all the bedrooms.

Dont give up! Have you washed teddies, dressing gowns and other things the kids regularly handle? You also need to clean all round the beds, wipe them down and then vacuum all round. Pants at night and shower in the morjing.

Came here to say this.

Also I had to get mine on prescription as I'm breastfeeding and the pharmacist refused to sell me them. The GP prescribed like 12 tablets or something ridiculous which for one prescription charge was great value!

This worn anecdote is rank so read at your peril.

We had the worst week of my parenting life when my 11m old at the time got worms (and we've been through some bad times) We actually ended up at A&E twice in the middle of the night because I couldn't work out wtf was going on and nor could they, she was screaming like something out of a horror movie for hours on end. An unexpected part was 24 hours after the first dose of the treatment I changed her nappy and assumed it was full of uncooked rice. Thought it was a bit odd, went to work and it was playing on my mind so I went home and looked at the nappy again to see that sone of the 'rice' was actually moving a bit. Took it straight to the GP who said it was a larvae infestation and didn't let us leave, she called somewhere in london for advice and sent it off to them. Turns out that it was actually unrelated to the itchy bum and that was just good old thread worms but the other one had also been killed and dumped by the ovex. We actually had to take 4 doses of the ovex and we now take it every 3 months just to be safe. I can't go through that again. Good luck.

I understand that it’s stressful but you can’t give up! If you leave them they will continue to multiply until everyone is in severe discomfort and if it gets bad enough they can cause some really nasty issues.

Would you not have just bought them in a different pharmacy? I took the Boots version of Ovex when breastfeeding as DC was almost 2 by then anyway.

We actually thought the worms were back a few weeks ago and persuaded DC to poo in the potty and couldn’t find any - that was not a pleasant task but I guess I was pleasantly surprised it must have just been a ‘regular’ itchy bum!

Oh god, that stuff. I can’t bear milkshakes or melted icecream because of it.

I could have done but the pharmacist said I might be prescribed an alternative, or I could come back with the prescription and he would sell them to me then as the GP had cleared it. When I went back to collect the baby's meds he told me how many tablets it was for so it was a no-brainer.

@violetcuriosity my goodness I wish I hadn't read that before bed! That must have been so so upsetting. Had you been abroad or something? I wonder what they were?

We also do ovex periodically as a precaution. This thread has reminded me it's been a while.

The worms are most active at night as they come out to lay in the dark. It may be beneficial to use a boiling hot flannel in the middle of the night to kill off any eggs before toddler scratches and puts their finger in their mouth and reactivate the cycle. First thing in normal waking morning time might be too late.

A bit of Vaseline up the bum hole as well as treating with Ovex, and all the hot washing measures you’ve taken has generally worked here. They can wriggle down there to lay their eggs then.

That stuff was the most revolting thing on earth. It was what death must taste like.

Kids of today will never know the horror.

I feel for you OP. I've had them most of my life ever since I caught them in primary school. I've never fully been able to get rid of them. They appear once or twice a year regardless of what I do. It's horrible