What Are the Treatments for Tapeworms?

A tapeworm is a parasite that can infest your digestive tract if you eat food or drink water that is contaminated with larvae or eggs. You won't seen many symptoms, although the National Institutes of Health says you may notice pieces of adult tapeworms in your feces. Otherwise, you may feel weak and nauseous and have diarrhea and stomach pain. You may also lose weight because you are not absorbing enough nutrition. If you suspect that you are infested, your doctor can prescribe an appropriate treatment.

Purpose

• The Mayo Clinic says that the main purpose of tapeworm treatment is to kill and dissolve adult tapeworms in your intestines. The medications are not absorbed very well by your digestive system, so they do not kill the eggs. During treatment, you must be careful not to reinfest yourself with any of the eggs you expel from your body.

Medication

• Your doctor will treat a tapeworm infestation with medication that is toxic to the worm. According to the Mayo Clinic, the most commonly used drugs are praziquantel and albendazole. The doctor chooses the best drug based on the species of tapeworm and the location of the infection. The Mayo Clinic says that medications effectively get rid of tapeworm infestations 95 percent of the time.

Time Frame

• Once you are done taking your medication, the doctor will check a stool sample over the next one to three months. The time frame will depend on the particular species with which you were infected. If the treatment was successful, there will be no detectable proglottids (worm segments), larvae or eggs in the sample. If your doctor finds any signs that you are still infected, she will put you back on medication.

Anti-Inflammatories

• If you have a severe tapeworm infestation that was caused by eating eggs rather than larvae, it may move to body tissues outside of your intestines. This can cause you to develop cysts. If this happens, your doctor may give you an anti-inflammatory steroid along with your tapeworm-killing medication. The steroid will control any swelling caused by the cysts.

Surgery

• When a tapeworm infection caused by worm eggs that have been ingested spreads, cysts can sometimes develop in major organs like the lungs or liver. This can become a life-threatening condition that requires surgery to remove the cyst. In the worst cases, the Mayo Clinic says that patients sometimes require an organ transplant if the damage is too severe to correct.

Warning

• Tapeworms are spread very easily, so you must be careful not to reinfect yourself while you are undergoing treatment. Wash your hands every time you use the restroom and before you eat. Use hot water and soap, and scrub them thoroughly.