Threadworms?

[rhaenyraT]

I co sleep with my 4 year old who has just started school - this may be relevant. For the past two nights I’ve been woken up with quite intense itching around my bum. I do have some issues with piles and skin tags in this area so itching isn’t unusual but I’ve never been woken up by it and it was particularly intense.

Obviously my mind turns to threadworms. Managed to avoid them with older dc but since I co sleep with littlest, she’s just started school and she just sleeps in pj bottoms no pants I guess it will be unavoidable if she’s got them for me not to catch them too.

She hasn’t shown any signs and because I have these bum issues anyway I’m holding on to some hope it might not be. But if it happens again tonight I will be treating all the family with ovex. What else do I need to do? Wash bedding and towels obviously. Is this for several days? I honestly am dreading the amount of work this will cause, I barely have time to stay on top of the normal chores. Any advice much appreciated I am freaking out a bit.

Bump

Get a torch and check your child’s bum when they’re asleep, you’ll be able to see them if they have them- I read on here Vaseline suffocates them, not sure if this is true, and keep all nails short!

Cut everyone's nails short. You get them by ingesting the eggs. I clean and vacuum everything. Clean surfaces. I so vacuumed my mattresses.

Just medicate the household as a precaution. It’s over the counter and just one tablet each.

Medicate the household, repeat in a fortnights time, wash bedding and towels on a hot wash, make sure everyone stays on top of hand washing.

Is it true that you can see them? I haven’t noticed anything in her poo (or mine) and she isn’t complaining about itching or pain. Because I have some issues with my own anatomy in that area I am trying not to jump the gun but if it happens again tonight I’ll medicate everyone as a precaution. But just worried about the amount of washing I’ll have to cram in - surely no point medicating if you can’t wash everything pretty soon after.

Thanks all. I have got the medication today and we’ve all had a tablet. Also washed dd bedding on a hot wash but ran out of time to do the rest. Hoovered as much as I can and hoping for the best. I tend to spiral a bit with things like this and often end up fixating on it which isn’t useful given that we don’t know for certain if there are any worms or where the eggs are! Will be wearing pants to bed and hoping for the best but the thought of it is really making me cringe.

My daughter gets them from time to time and she can see them in her poo. I've always treated everybody and made sure her stuff gets washed, but never specifically done everybody's bedding and none of the rest of us have ever caught them. So although I'm sure it's best practice, you might get away with not doing everyone. Obviously if anyone else has symptoms you'd want to.

The most important thing is washing hands before eating. Even without treatment, if everyone did this and nobody put their hands in their mouth it would break the cycle.
Obviously this isn’t easy to achieve with a 4 year old, but if everyone older becomes scrupulous about clean nails etc it will help, and with the help of Ovex you should be able to get on top of it without insane amounts of laundry.

Thank you that’s reassuring. It is hard to keep her from sticking her hands and toys and stuff in her mouth and just generally messing about. She has just volleyed her pants off before her bath and I had visions of little wormy eggs flying everywhere! It’s not even her who has had symptoms, it’s me! But if I’ve got them it almost certainly has to have been something she brought back from school surely?