identifying pinworms to show doctors

Like many other people have experienced, several doctors were not convinced that I had pinworms and I wanted their help so we could have a diagnosis, to move on to treatment.

Also, it created lots of anxiety for me -- being sure I had something and not being able to prove it.

Tape tests (paddles on anus) did not work for me. Anal swabs did not work to find eggs. ---probably because I was already fighting the parasite volume down.

BUT, the procedure below did work. And with it we got a definitive sample and confirmed the diagnosis of pinworms at the Infectious & Parasitical Diseases Lab at the hospital in my city that handles Tropical Diseases.

This took about 4 days of trying but I got viable samples. You will need a couple of old (clean) pill bottles, scotch tape, rubbing alcohol, and kleenex.

To do this you need to have no cream or anything on the anal area for a few days - so you can feel what is happening, and not to have your sample covered in cream so you cannot see if you found anything.

I put 2 kleenex together & folded them up in four (like a small face cloth) and left several in the bathroom. Everytime I would feel anything I rushed to the bathroom, splashed some rubbing alcohol on my kleenex facecloth and pressed against the area where I could feel the movement (don't rub). The alcohol kills the worm and it sticks to the kleenex.

Sometimes I pressed a bit of the kleenex cloth (wet with alcohol) up the anus a bit and carefully lifted away.

Over 2 days I picked up 4 samples this way. One large and a couple very small white things.

When you see something on the kleenex cloth, you use a 1/2 long piece of scotch tape to lightly lift it off. Then lightly drop the scotch tape vertically into the pill bottle (or a baby food jar would work too). The tape should not stick to the bottle, just stand up in it. Use a different bottle for each piece of tape.

The samples will be viable for identification for a while (at least a week that I know of). Bring several samples to lab.

Then you can go back to Noxema or Zinc Ointment on your poor tushie.

Bluepetunia

Tweet