Downright Terrifying Guinea Worm

WARNING: If you have a weak stomach or overactive imagination, you're going to want to skip this answer. You've been warned.

Guinea Worm Disease is caused by drinking water containing water fleas that have ingested Dracunculus medinensis (Guinea Worm) larva. (It can also be caused by eating undercooked fish that contain the worm larva.) Then… nothing noticeable happens for a year.

Inside the body of the infected person, though, things are happening. Within 2 weeks of ingesting, the water fleas die and release the Guinea Worm larva into the digestive tract. There, they slowly make their way through the stomach and intestinal walls while growing and maturing. They eventually make their way into the subcutaneous tissue (the layer directly under the skin). Here, they continue to grow into adult worms after their year long journey through the body. A mature adult can reach lengths between 24-40 inches.

So now we have a 2–3+ foot long worm living just under the skin. And it gets worse from here. Now the infected person will start experiencing debilitating pain and swelling where the worm is, as well as fever, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, and shortness of breath. And, it gets worse.

After mating, the adult female worm begins making its way to the top of the skin. This causes painful blisters on the infected person. The blisters itch and burn, and when immersed in water for relief, the Guinea Worm breaks through the skin and releases her larva back into whatever water source the infected person is washing in. After a few weeks, the worm runs out of larva and dies, where it becomes calcified in the body. This can cause contracture (joints locking and deformity inside the body). Also, the wounds from this disease can become infected with bacteria, leading to sepsis and/or septic arthritis. While Guinea Worm Disease by itself is rarely fatal, sepsis very much can be.

Oh, and there is no cure for it. No vaccine exists that can prevent it. And, there are no diagnostic tests that can detect infection in a person until symptoms appear (which again, takes a year to manifest after the initial infection).

So, how is it treated? Simple: the infected area is submerged in water, encouraging the worm to break through the skin. Then, the few exposed centimeters of worm are trapped using a piece of gauze or a stick, so that the worm cannot retreat back inside the body. After a while, the area is again submerged, which encourages more of the worm to come out, where it is carefully wound around the stick more and more until the entire worm is extracted. This process can take weeks, and if the worm breaks off, it dies and gets calcified in the body.

So… yeah. Enjoy your nightmares.

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