Re: Parasites in my mouth

You wrote "this is a lung fluke" like you know what they look like. Do you know these critters?

I was going on a written description of the lung fluke p. westermani; as being cherry red fading to brown, lobed, with a "stem," and the same size as my cheery little specimen. The exactness of the match of the description to my stool specimen, plus seeing a photo of p. westermani ova, which exactly matched the ovoids I hocked up, and the general symptom of coughing/spitting and blood in sputum but negative test for TB seemed conclusive as an ID.

But I had never seen a lung fluke until I produced my (presumed) very own dead one, from my rear end, after taking prazi/tricla for liver flukes, which I knew I had. The lung fluke was a surprise.

(I keep adding to the list of parasites I have seen emerge from my body. I feel like a medical textbook on why not to visit Asia and assume that because your mother is Korean, neither of you will die from eating the food there. Or in China, Hong Kong, or Japan. Also places I went that I now wish I hadn't, but had stayed home and read about in travel magazines.) Tweet