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If there is one thing that makes me very apprehensive, one day I suffer from appendicitis. Anyone who has had this experience says it is terrible, with searing pains! However, a thousand times have appendicitis than what happened to a teenager in the UK: when hospitalized for an appendix removal surgery after an alleged inflammation, doctors found that the cause of the pain was a worm infestation!

The 15-year-old girl was admitted to the Royal Cornwall Hospital in the city of Truro with nausea and hip pain - classic symptoms of appendicitis. Every doctor knows that the ideal in this case is to operate as soon as possible so that inflammation and infection do not spread to other abdominal regions.

Of course before a person enters the knife a series of examinations is performed. In the case of the adolescent, whose identity was preserved, both ultrasound and urine samples were not conclusive, so surgery was indicated. However, upon opening the girl's belly, doctors found a lot of worms crawling in the healthy appendix.

Worms found during surgery to remove 15-year-old girl's appendix

Common roundworms

Due to the pain, doctor Luke Allen explains that the decision was to perform a laparoscopy as it does not require a very large skin incision. When investigating the ovary, uterus and small intestine, nothing unusual appeared. When the surgical team reached the appendix, the shock occurred: a multitude of worms emerged from the incision point at the very base of the organ.

According to doctors, this type of contamination is quite common, affecting millions of people a year, mainly of school age. They are roundworms that at first do no harm, but are contagious: they enter orally when someone touches a contaminated surface.

The eggs of these worms pass throughout the digestive system and may lodge in the small intestine. There are born the larvae that lodge in the large intestine, living as parasites. The girl was hospitalized and took medication to kill eggs and larvae that were not removed during surgery. She is doing well, fortunately.

Roundworms are common parasites, especially in children.