Threadworms ... please give me hope!!!!!!!!!

[Doodledoo]

Please let me know if you've cured threadworms in your house.

2 weeks ago I found a threadworm in my poo - I know they are v common but I was completely freaked out esp when felt them in lady parts. Mostly v upsetting. Kids seem clear but we've all be Ovec-ed and tidying, cleaning, washing within an inch of our lives.

Yesterday, just when feeling a bit more upbeat I felt them again. Have repeated treatment plus gone out and bought grapefruit seed extract, pumpkin seeds and everything suggested.

I've read some hideous stories of reinfections of threadworms lasting years. So please - give me hope!! If you've knocked them of the head quickly, tell me your top tips (I've read lots of mumsnet threads (boom boom) on threadworms but anything you think was particularly effective, please share).

Yours in wormy desparation!

Ok. We have had this problem, my son was terrible for sucking his fingers.
You should take a dose of Ovec then another two weeks later. What our Dr. suggested though when we kept reinfected was to take 3 doses one a week apart ie. one on a Monday, one the Monday after that and the last the Monday after that to make sure you get the blighters.

Also continue the daily hoovering and damp dusting for 6 weeks as that's how long the eggs live. Wear pants in bed. Wash bits especially in the morning.

We'd find though that we'd get clear then we'd go back to school and 10 days later DS would be reinfected. So obviously the infection was coming from school.

Instill the need to wash your hands before lunch(something our school doesn't do). We also had a word with the head as it was getting stupid and they put a letter out about symptoms etc.

Good luck.

Thank you Kitty Brown - did you clear them in the end? My eldest has just told me she has a tickley bottom at night (I already have her in pants and pj trousers plus she's had a second dose of Ovex). Still, here was me thinking she was clear...

Doodle I have been the victim of recurrent infestations too, as has my youngest son. No one else in the family is affected, only us 2! Which makes me think we are more 'prone' to it. He is a nail biter, so am I at times. Plus I work in a school where little fingers down pants are a common occurance.

I wish schools would make as much fuss about worms as they do about nits.

Yes, I was surprised when I read 40% of preschoolers have threadworms at any given time. Why isn't everyone talking about it??!!

I read somewhere that 90% of children have worms but only 50% of those affected show symptoms.

We did clear them in the end but I don't know if that's due to the children getting older or the result of the worm awareness campaign.We did find though that 14 days between ovex doses was too long and they always came back. This year we've had one bout of them but they were poisioned straight away and no sign of them coming back since.

I agree Mrsmaid schools should make more fuss about them. We get letters all the time about nits. Once you come clean and talk about worms to the other mothers you soon realise they are everywhere. I help out some mornings in a class and you can see which ones have worms (I have an expert trained eye now!) the wiggling on the chair and the, as you say, telltale hands down the pants. I wish I had the guts to tell their parents.

Thanks KB - and also really good to know that you've been able to get rid of them.

That's been a really useful tip about taking Ovex with less time in between.

Just finished my nightly bottom check (involving torch and examining my poor unsuspecting children) but for now there are no obvious signs and they've not been itchy during the day at least ...

We had wretched things when DC were little - got family pack of threadworm pills from Boots - everyone took them at same time, then repeated it again about week or two later. Seemed to do trick.

Good luck !

i am absolutely sick to death of getting worms..i'm 38 and suffered all my life..ovex appears to work for a month or so,but comes back..its weird but wen i was pregnant last year i never had them.then after i gave birth they came back...no one else in my household suffers like me.but another strange thing is my dad says he always has suffered with them..iv'e been trying to do abit of research before i go back to the doctors,only to be fobbed off yet again..they may be some connection to the fact that i have vitiligo or the fact that my dads father came from Afganistan and 1 in 4 people from developing countries have reoccuring threadworms also military people and immigrants.autoinfection is a name ive found.and strongyloidiasis..but its not something doctors tend to look for.just hope i can get it sorted once and for all.

I have vitiligo (at least a third of my body covered) and I also have an ongoing problem with threadworms that I am sure has lasted for years and have given up going to the Doctors to be told I cannot still have them. I am not 100% sure I have ever got rid of them fully or whether I just get reinfected from my youngest son who is also prone (no one else in family seems to be susceptible). Someone once told me that an acquaintance of theirs absolutely could not get rid of them and resorted for a form of treatment that involved standing on a mat and having an electrical current pass through their body! Anybody else heard of this? Also, the connection with vitiligo and threadworms could they be some sort of trigger to induce vitiligo?

I've heard that threadworms thrive on sugar. Are the people who keep getting them eating quite a lot of sugar?

@Doodledoo sorry for resurrecting this old thread but how are you doing?