A recently published case study takes out the ‘WOW! Factor Medal’ for its extraordinary illustration of just how impacting simple silly old lil’ (I’m being tongue in cheek of course) threadworm (aka Enterobius vermicularis) can be on a child’s mental health.
“The patient was a 10-year old Syrian female, who presented with unusual and vague symptoms like insomnia and irritability, nightmares and weight loss. Given the violent background of the Syrian warzone that the patient had escaped, she was firstly diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) before eventually getting correctly diagnosed with enterobiasis.”
They understandably thought she had a mental disorder
The medical officers understandably had it flagged as PSTD.
She had worms – threadworms
Two rounds of systemic (not OTC) worming drugs – with each dose two weeks apart, in order to avoid reinfection, the symptoms all resolved and after a 3 month follow-up period, the patient remained asymptomatic without any signs of recurrence.
Just makes you think are there others out there with the wrong diagnosis when it could be these creepy critters – doesn’t it
Want to learn more in the whole area of the potent overlap between GIT and neurobehavioural presentations in kids? Paediatric Digestive Issues & Neurocognitive Abnormalities was one of Rachel’s most popular presentations captured last year which talks you through the links and the practical work-up in each of paediatric patient. Rachel’s presentation reviews the key neurobehavioural manifestations of a variety of common paediatric digestive issues and introduce you to a few of her favourite paediatric patients that taught her all this (!), along the way. Available as Audiovisual streaming and PDF notes.