How can humans catch tapeworms and how can humans tell if they have tapeworms?

Answer 1

It is possible to "catch" a tapeworm by ingesting the eggs. If you eat food or drink water contaminated with feces from a person or animal with tapeworm, you are ingesting microscopic tapeworm eggs. For example, a pig infected with tapeworm will pass tapeworm eggs in its feces, which gets into the soil. If this same soil comes in contact with a food or water source, it becomes contaminated. You can then be infected when you eat or drink something from the contaminated source. Once inside your intestine, the eggs develop into larvae. At this stage, the larvae become mobile. If they migrate out of your intestines, they form cysts in other tissues such as your lungs or liver. Invasive tapeworm infection is more common with pork tapeworm than with the other kinds. Contact with infected fecal matter is not the only way to get a tape worm though.

You can ingest larvae cysts in meat or muscle tissue as well. When an animal has a tapeworm infection, it has tapeworm larvae in its muscle tissue. If you eat raw or undercooked meat from an infected animal, you ingest the larvae, which then develop into adult tapeworms in your intestines.

Adult tapeworms can measure up to 50 feet long and can survive as long as 20 years in a host. Some tapeworms attach themselves to the walls of the intestine, where they cause irritation or mild inflammation, while others may pass through to your stool and exit your body.

Typically, you'll have most of the following symptoms;

• Nausea
• Weakness
• Loss of appetite
• Abdominal pain
• Diarrhea
• Weight loss and inadequate absorption of nutrients from food