Can You Get Pinworms Without Being Around An Infected Person
Yes. A pinworm infection can also be spread through:
- Bed sheets and undergarments: Eggs can spread through contact with contaminated sheets, towels or underwear of infected people.
- Inhalation: Because the eggs are so tiny, they can travel through the air and inhaled. Once inhaled, they travel through the digestive tract, hatch and lay their own eggs.
- Dogs and cats: While pinworms are usually transmitted from human to human, dogs and cats can carry the eggs on their fur and transfer them to humans.
How Is Pruritus Ani Diagnosed
The doctor will obtain a full medical history and perform a physical examination to identify possible underlying causes, such as dermatological conditions and other illnesses. He or she will visually inspect the area to look for changes in skin color or texture, rashes, or lesions. The doctor will ask about any medications that you take and the type and frequency of bowel movements.
The doctor may obtain skin specimens and perform tests to screen for bacterial or other infections.
How Can You Tell If You Have A Pinworm Infection
Any pinworm eggs will stick to the tape, which your doctor can see under a microscope in a lab. A tapeworm infection is usually diagnosed by finding eggs or tapeworm segments in the stool.
You have probably heard of both pinworms and hemorrhoids being common gastrointestinal disorders that can cause itching, burning, and discomfort in the anorectal area. Pinworms are small parasites that can set up camp in your colon or rectum.
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Your Internal Hemorrhoid Problem
Visit your doctor to learn more about this issue and discuss the treatment approach thats right for you. To find a local colorectal specialist, try our Find a Doctor database.
As with all medical issues, your physician is the ultimate source as to what procedure best fits your needs. Discuss all options and get a second opinion if you have any doubts. These articles are intended to be a source of general information only.
The Doc Smitty Talks Diagnoses And Treatment

Kids itch their bottoms.
On a recent interview with the Joel McHale Show, Kristen Bell described an episode in her family that highlights one common cause: pinworms.
If you havent seen the video, I highly recommend you watch it because, its actually pretty accurate and, despite the fact that she uses a word near the end thats a little too mature for Anna, she somehow manages to make having pinworms adorable in a way that only Kristen Bell can.
How do children get pinworms?
Kids usually get pinworms from eating foods or touching contaminated surfaces and then placing their hands in their mouths. The eggs are small enough to become airborne and swallowed.
So, like she says in the video, they are highly contagious.
How do you know if you or your child has pinworms?
How do we diagnose pinworms?
If you see the worms or the child has a known exposure to someone with pinworms and is showing symptoms, its reasonable to assume that they have them and proceed with treatment.
How do we treat pinworms?
The easiest, cheapest means of treating pinworms for kids over 2 years of age is pyrantel pamoate. It is available over the counter and is given in doses, one dose now and another dose in 2 weeks. If your child is under 2, consult your doctor.
Household members and caregivers of the child should also be treated. Avoid co-bathing during the 2 week period. Taking a daily shower and washing clothes in hot water can help prevent reinfection.
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Treatments For Hemorrhoids Vs Rectal Prolapse
Treatments for hemorrhoids
More severe cases of hemorrhoids may require surgery. Your doctor may recommend treating milder cases of hemorrhoids with the following at-home remedies, including:
- Sit in a bathtub full of plain, warm water several times per day.
- Place ice packs on the hemorrhoids to help with swelling.
- Apply hemorrhoid creams or inserting suppositories.
- Add more fiber to your diet.
- Take stool softeners.
Treatments for rectal prolapse
Treatments for rectal prolapse usually focus on preventing constipation and straining. Kegel exercises and stool softeners can also help. Rectal prolapse will sometimes go away on its own. However, severe cases of rectal prolapse may require surgery, such as:
- Repair can be made through the abdomen to attach the rectum to the backbone to keep it in place.
- Repair can be made through the rectum to remove the prolapsed section.
- Some repairs combine both techniques through the abdomen and rectum.
Talk to your doctor about whether you have hemorrhoids and rectal prolapse so you can get the right treatment and relieve your pain and discomfort.
How Do You Prevent Worms
To avoid being infected with either pinworms or tapeworms, itâs crucial that you wash your hands with soap and water before eating or handling food and after going to the bathroom or changing diapers.
Here are some other ways to prevent them:
- Keep your fingernails clipped short.
- Take a shower or bath every day .
- Wash your clothes and bed linens often.
To help prevent tapeworms, try these things:
- Donât eat raw or undercooked beef, pork, or fish.
- If you have a dog with tapeworm, treat it right away.
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Treatment For Pinworm Infection
- Pyrantel pamoate . Available over the counter.
You may need to take at least two doses to get rid of the worms completely. The medicine might upset your stomach a little.
The doctor may prescribe medication to everyone in your household to prevent infection and reinfection. For best results, treat the infected person and everyone in your house at the same time.
How Do Pinworm Infections Spread
Pinworm infections are contagious.
Pinworms get into the body when people ingest or breathe in the microscopic pinworm eggs. These eggs can be found on contaminated hands and surfaces, such as:
- desks or lunch tables at school
The eggs pass into the digestive system and hatch in the small intestine. From the small intestine, pinworm larvae go to the large intestine, where they live as parasites .
When someone scratches the itchy area, microscopic pinworm eggs transfer to their fingers. Contaminated fingers can then carry pinworm eggs to the mouth, where they go back into the body, or stay on various surfaces, where they can live for 2 to 3 weeks.
If youâre wondering if your family pet could give your child a pinworm infection, it canât. Pinworms donât come from animals.
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Bleeding During Bowel Movements
There are many underlying causes of rectal bleeding, including hemorrhoids. Blood associated with internal hemorrhoids is typically bright red, causes no pain, occurs with bowel movements, and may be mild to moderate in amount.
You cant assume, however, that your symptoms are due to hemorrhoids. If youve never been diagnosed with hemorrhoids or have noted a change in the characteristics of the bleeding youve associated with hemorrhoids, see a doctor for an accurate diagnosis.
Hemorrhoids and rectal prolapse can cause similar symptoms in your rectum. However, there are significant differences in how the two conditions manifest. Understanding the signs and symptoms of hemorrhoids versus rectal prolapse can be vital in making sure you receive the proper treatment.
What Causes Rectal Cancer
Rectal cancer usually develops over several years, first growing as a precancerous growth called a polyp. Some polyps have the ability to turn into cancer and begin to grow and penetrate the wall of the rectum. The actual cause of rectal cancer is unclear. However, the following are risk factors for developing rectal cancer:
- Family history of colon or rectal cancer
- High-fat diet and/or a diet mostly from animal sources
- Personal or family history of polyps or colorectal cancer
- Inflammatory bowel disease
Family history is a factor in determining the risk of rectal cancer. If a family history of colorectal cancer is present in a first-degree relative , then endoscopy of the colon and rectum should begin 10 years before the age of the relatives diagnosis or at age 50 years, whichever comes first. An often forgotten risk factor, but perhaps the most important, is the lack of screening for rectal cancer. Routine cancer screening of the colon and rectum is the best way to prevent rectal cancer.
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Who Gets Hemorrhoids The Most
Well, hemorrhoids tend not to be race, gender or age-specific. Although they can happen in both men and women, they are more common in the adult of age 45 to 65.
Although women frequently develop hemorrhoids during pregnancy, there is actually no studies which determine women to get hemorrhoids more often than men. Men tend to seek treatment for this condition more often than woman though.
If you want a safe, herbal solution for your hemorrhoids, you might want to consider HemRid. This is a great supplement for hemorrhoids. If you are struggling with hemorrhoid pain and want relief, click on the image below to learn more.
Although the exact cause of hemorrhoids is not known, possible factors such as if a person has a family history of hemorrhoids, straining during a bowel movement,
complications from chronic constipation, and sitting for long periods of time can lead to a person being more prone to developing them.
Check out this youtube videoit show how to find out if you have hemorrhoids or not.
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Life Cycle Of A Pinworm

Infections begin when pinworm eggs are eaten, usually directly through contaminated hands or indirectly through contaminated food, bedding, clothing or other articles. The eggs then travel to the gut where they hatch and mature. A grown pinworm is yellowish white, slender and about one centimetre long.
The eggs can survive on surfaces or objects for up to 2 weeks in the right conditions and can infect other people if transferred to the mouth or food.
Household pets cannot be infected with pinworms or pass them on to humans.
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How Are Pinworms Typically Treated
Pyrantel pamoate is in most over-the-counter treatments for pinworms. This includes Reeses Pinworm Medicine and Pin-X. Prescription-strength medications are also available. Your doctor may prescribe a two-dose treatment of mebendazole or albendazole to help you clear the infection. The second dose of medication is typically given two weeks after the first dose.
Youll also need to make adjustments to your personal hygiene and home care. Follow these tips:
- Wash your hands regularly.
- Keep your fingernails short, and refrain from biting your nails.
- Wear tight underwear.
- Wash your underwear in hot water each day.
- Change your sleepwear regularly.
- Mop or vacuum the floors in all living spaces.
- Wash all linens and bedding in hot water.
What Are The Signs And Symptoms Of An Internal Or Prolapsed Hemorrhoid
- May enlarge and swell even more if it cannot be pushed back
- May become entrapped, which requires more urgent medical attention
Hemorrhoids may also cause , and a constant feeling of needing to have a bowel movement .
Internal hemorrhoid severity can be graded:
- Grade I: Prominent blood vessels with no prolapse
- Grade II: Prolapse with bearing down but with spontaneous reduction
- Grade III: Prolapse with bearing down but requiring manual reduction
- Grade IV: Prolapse with inability to manual reduction
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When To Seek Medical Care If You Think You Have Pinworms
- If you suspect that you or your child might have pinworms, you should make an appointment to see your doctor.
- To help the doctor make the diagnosis, look for these signs:
- Pinworms are big enough to be seen with the naked eye. They are yellow-white and look like a fine piece of thread. They are usually less than one-half inch long.
- Pinworms can also sometimes be seen on the outside of a child’s stool.
- albendazole is the most common treatment for pinworms.
- Treatment is a single tablet, which kills the worms. There are different strengths for adults and children younger than two years of age.
- Because eggs can survive for a few weeks, the patient will have to take a second dose two weeks later to lessen the chance of reinfection.
How Are Pinworms Treated
Pinworms are treated with an oral anti-parasitic medication that kills the worms. You will need to take one dose right away and another dose two weeks later to make sure all the worms are gone. To reduce the risk of re-infection, pediatricians recommend that the family members and caregivers of an infected child be treated, as well.
The medications used to treat pinworms are:
- Pyrantel pamoate
Pyrantel pamoate is the medication most commonly used to treat pinworms. It is available without a prescription .
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What Do Hemorrhoids Feel Like
Do hemorrhoids itch? Do hemorrhoids hurt?
These are some of the first questions that people will ask when they are trying to determine the cause of their discomfort. By far, the biggest complaint regarding hemorrhoids is the itching. The feeling of blood pulsing through a swollen and twisted vein in such a sensitive region of your body is going to cause you to feel itchy.
The worst part about itching hemorrhoids is that you cant simply itch them, which typically causes the sensation to grow more severe. Sitting for a prolonged period of time will typically worsen the itching.
To alleviate itching caused by hemorrhoids you can try using cold compresses, take a warm sitz bath, or try using an over the counter ointment.
These solutions will help to reduce itching, as well as lessen the severity of other symptoms that commonly develop with hemorrhoids. Whether they are internal or external, all hemorrhoids produce the same symptoms at different levels of severity.
Common symptoms of hemorrhoids include:
- Pain during bowel movements
Bleeding causing by hemorrhoids is not typically severe. Bleeding occurs typically during a bowel movement, when the process of pushing causes the bulbous vein to tear or scratch. When this happens, the blood will show clearly on the tissue in a streak of bright red.
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Signs Your Hemorrhoids Require Medical Intervention
You may, understandably, not like to talk about it, but hemorrhoids are pretty common. They affect about 10 million adults in the United States annually. Its estimated, in fact, that as many as three in four adults will experience problems with hemorrhoids at some point in their lives.
Take a walk down the pharmacy aisle at your local grocery store and youll likely find plenty of treatments that promise to help. But what do you do when home remedies dont work? Is there a medical treatment that will help heal your hemorrhoids and resolve your pain?
Yes, says Dr. Betsy Clemens. And the good news? Effective hemorrhoid treatment doesnt always mean surgery. In fact, most of the time it does not.
Dr. Clemens leads our team here at Midwest Hemorrhoid Treatment Center in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Shes a specialist who is well known for her medical expertise as well as her passion for making her patients feel comfortable when addressing this sometimes embarrassing condition.
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What Medications And Other Products Treat Hemorrhoids
Medications are used to control symptoms by softening the stool, decreasing the inflammation of the hemorrhoids, and treating the pain. Stool softeners work by increasing the water and fat content within the stool allowing it to be passed more easily. Docusate sodium is the most often recommended drug in this class .
Inflammation can be controlled with over-the-counter creams or suppositories. Some brand ingredients include low dose topical anesthetics to help with symptoms. Others contain astringents that help shrink the swollen tissues. Both may contain low dose steroids to decrease inflammation. People with diabetes should check with their pharmacist or health care professional before using OTC hemorrhoid treatments. If the medication contains a vasoconstrictor it may elevate blood sugar levels if absorbed in large amounts. Prescription-strength lidocaine or hydrocortisone may be offered by the health care professional.
Grade 2 and 3 hemorrhoids are initially treated the same way, using techniques to destroy hemorrhoids. These include injecting the hemorrhoid vein to make it sclerose or harden, using rubber bands to choke off the blood supply and make the hemorrhoidal tissue shrivel, or other procedures that cause the mucosa to shrivel and die.
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How Are You Diagnosed

A tapeworm infection is usually diagnosed by finding eggs or tapeworm segments in the stool. Your doctor may ask you to bring in a sample so a lab can look for eggs, larvae, or tapeworm segments. A blood test can spot antigens, foreign substances that let your doctor know your body is trying to fight the infection. Sometimes, an MRI or CAT scan can find cysts formed by the pork tapeworm.
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