I had the privilege of presenting at the Integria GIT Symposium last weekend. For those of you who attended, you’ve gone back to your clinic with a bunch of new ideas and inspiration I hope…oh and a new respect, terror and watchfulness for threadworm thanks to me! In my presentation I outlined the many presentations of this infestation, what to watch for and the risk of chronic recurrence due,in particular, to a reduced ability for some individuals to produce chondroitin sulfate which renders the GIT environment hostile to worms.
Chronic threadworm is a huge & grossly under-recognised issue in paediatrics, often presenting as behavioural & cognitive disorders (and these can be severe), bruxism, enuresis etc. of course, but another presentation typically missed is vulvovaginitis, vulval pain or UTI like sx in young girls.
Anyway…what can we do what can we do? I talked about a multi-pronged approach, which must include addressing the genitourinary reservoir of eggs and worms in girls (Yep that’s what I said…) and I mentioned having success using chondroitin sulphate in all kids with recurring issues. Since then my inbox over-floweth with practitioners’ burning question: Where do you get your chondroitin sulphate from for these cases?
Ideally, we would use this as a simple and in the following doses (bodyweight dependent):
2-6 years 1g (1/4 tsp) 2 X daily
7-12 years 2g (1/2 tsp) 2 X daily
adults 4g (1 tsp) 2 X daily
So where to get chondroitin sulphate from do you ask? You can get it here on the Worm Whisperer website
If you missed the Integria Symposium, which by the way stood out because each presenter is a clinician and spoke with authenticity and great clinical relevance, I’ll be releasing the recording of my whole talk on paediatric gut and mental health problems soon or you can just threadworm key points by listening to this UU30 edition: Chronic Threadworm Infestation – Diagnosis & Effective Treatment.
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