Threadworms - think I’m going to give up

[Aboutreadytogiveup]

Just found a worm in child’s poo. Lost track of how many times this has happened. Have spent, quite literally, hundreds and hundreds of pounds on ovex over the years.

I’ve driven myself insane with hygiene measures in the past. We have four children and five bedrooms and a million stuffed animals and when I tell you the laundry/additional cleaning has very nearly killed me in the past I’m only half joking.

I’ve read everything there is to read about their lifecycle and treatment and incubation. I know how many children are currently infected and how easy it is to catch them.

I also know many families in my children’s schools do not dream of taking the hygiene measures I previously have. So I go to all these efforts to kill these current worms… and my kids are likely to bring home another cycle in a month or two. no matter what I do.

AIBU to just give up?

You don’t need to do the hygiene measures. Two whole family doses, one week apart, is all you need plus wash all sheets and change nightclothes daily. The actual scrubbing of surfaces has been found to make little difference. It’s about kids touching their own skin at night before the treatment has killed the eggs

I wish that was true, but everything I’ve read says the eggs can live for 20 days and are transmitted by touch so soft toys need washing, carpets thoroughly hoovering, damp dusting etc. and honestly, five lots of bedding to wash a day on top of a full time job and all the usual cleaning and laundry - and for what? Them to catch it at school again from a family who don’t give a fig about washing sheets every day!

Not to mention the stats I’ve read about how many soft plays etc are infested with worm eggs 🤢 I feel like we have no chance

What Worked for me were gut tablets, I kept them in the fridge and they sorted me out. I sympathise as they are horrible x

My neighbour with 3 young kids tried the gut tablets plus pineapple and that sorted them out. She was going crazy as they seemed to get rid of them then caught them again.

Wow - I've got 3 kids and either we've never had worms, or we've had them all along and not noticed.

Nits however...

boots own brand rather than ovex. Agree if they keep recurring just double dose on the tablets and leave all the sanitising of toys etc, for your sanity. Treat everyone at the earliest sign anyone has an itchy bum.

Which ones please and thank you!

Funnily enough, we’ve never had nits and I don’t know how!!

many, many, MANY people are infected and don’t know. For many it’s asymptomatic, or they put symptoms down to other things. It’s horrible 😭

Did you have better results with boots stuff?

My theory is you get one or the other.

Sadly we are a wormy family. Nits sound less gross in my view.

DS was always getting worms. A doctor friend told me to worm
him regularly like pets so
o used to give him a dose every now and then. If he had itching I always did at least three doses. I figured that was better than all that cleaning. If you dose for long enough eventually the eggs in carpet etc have died off and you’ve managed to always kill an hatching worms before the cycle starts again. Ovex isn’t harmful. Just expensive 😫

He did eventually grow out of it by the way!

I agree, if I was a millionaire I’d be dosing the entire family every month…but with seven family members (and three others I’d need to include as do care for kids) I literally can’t imagine how we’d fund this…and we’re relatively well off. No idea how less fortunate families manage. Well maybe they don’t, actually

I just used to dose DS most of the time. We never got them. For just in case doses I’d just do the kids and only treat everyone when there is an actual infection.

We got read of them by everyone taking the dose at the same time. Then two weeks after that. And again two weeks after that. This was after a few times of trial and error. It was more effective than the hygiene measures.

We have (to my horror) caught them from the kids before. Despite having a near diagnosable obsession with hygiene. Which means I feel the need to treat everyone, and also has only made me realise how futile the whole thing seems. If we are doing our best to avoid them and are still getting them regularly, people who don’t know they’re infected or don’t want to do what’s needed to prevent re infection are out in the world and reinfecting us all…so I feel helpless

This is what we’ve done in the past. We last took tablets a few months ago and hey presto, like clockwork, new worms have arrived!!

I’d be concerned that the worms are resistant to the ovex or the dose isn’t high enough. Worth looking into. I know with animals an inadequate dose will kill most worms but not all, leaving a period of time symptom free until the remaining blighters start reproducing and upping their numbers, and symptoms start again. Then their offspring become even more resistant to the drug and so it continues each time, with them becoming more resistant. Hope that makes sense?! It seems unusual to be reinfected this much.

We're the opposite - neither of my now-teenage kids has ever had nits, but they've both had thread worms at least 3 times each. Weird.

Oh god nits 😢. Never again..it took me ages to get the wee horrible creeps out my daughters hair. I hate beasties at the best of times, but these horrid shits were the worst!. Thankfully not had worms and hopefully never do or im moving out 😬🫣

I did actually call the gp a few years ago after I asked a pharmacist this and they recommended I ask a doctor…the doctor said ovex ‘always’ works and ‘if it doesn’t, take another dose’. Which always confused me because these assertions contradict themselves. But it’s not like there’s a ‘stronger’ medicine available so what on earth do I do?

Try three doses for all with each dose two weeks apart.
New pjs and knickers, towels for first few days. Clean toilet and door handles.

Time the dosing so the second dose is right as you take off for a warm holiday at the beach.

I got worms a couple of times as a kid because I didn't wash my hands after the toilet and would bite my nails, ingesting the worm eggs harbouring underneath them.
The thought of another dose of Pripsen was enough to make me start washing my hands... and stop biting my nails! To my mind, it's the only way to keep them at bay.

You just need to break the oral-faecal transmission route. It's doable without Ovex and without driving yourself into the ground with washing bedding and toys.

Cut your kids nails short and keep them that way.

Enforce proper hand washing with a scrub of nails before every meal/snack, after every single use of the toilet, as soon as they get up in the morning and last thing before bed.

Kids to wear pants in bed.

Nail biting to be prevented wherever possible.

The hand washing first thing before any chance for hands to go to mouth is really key btw!