When I was a kid I assumed I got them from the cherry tree in our backyard. The cherries would sometimes get maggots in them. We normally ate them anyway. If it was a really bad year for them we cut the cherries in half and rinsed out the maggots before eating handfuls. They are delicious Bing cherries – no reason to waste! – I have never been particularly squeamish. In retrospect, those little cherry maggots do not much resemble pinworms, apart from the general length and color. The maggots are several times thicker and have ridged bodies.
Then I heard about people getting worms from walking or swimming in dirty water. Once again, that’s a different kind of worm.
Whatever the cause was, I figured it was my fault. Either I had eaten something I should not have or been somewhere I should have known to avoid.
And even if it was not my fault, there was no world in which I would tell someone that I pooped out worms on a daily basis. I had a sneaking suspicion that this would lead to me having to have some sort of embarrassing examination.
So I chose to live for ten years with a very itchy butthole and vagina, visible parasites in my daily poos, hemorrhoids, and even my mom thinking I started my period several years before I did because there was blood in my underwear. (I had scratched myself until I bled.) Of course then I did start to wonder if I had started my period…when I actually did, the amount of blood was significantly higher.
Before you get appalled about all the sleepovers I brought my pinworms to, please remember that I was a kid. And those were the days before widespread use of WebMD. I wish I would have felt more comfortable talking about my body, but I was always embarrassed. I hated having pinworms (although I did not know what they were called at the time). I just hated the idea of telling someone more. I figured it was something I just had to live with. It was pretty clear they were not going away.
In my freshman year of college, with the added stress of taking my daily poops in a multi-stalled dorm bathroom, I got pretty constipated, developed a substantial hemorrhoid, and one day had a lot of blood in my stool. That is the first time I got seriously worried about my condition. I did a quick google search (making sure no one could look over my shoulder) and learned that although pinworms (I now had a name for them!) are pretty benign, they cause discomfort (you’re telling me!), and are incredibly contagious! I was horrified thinking about all the people I might have infected in the last ten years.
That is when I did something very brave. I told my friend. Well, what really happened is I told her I had something to tell her then took at least half an hour to get it out. I had made her promise that she would not make me go to the health center once she knew. She immediately made me go to the health center. I was mad, but am now so thankful! It was a quick visit with the doctor, no embarrassing evaluation, and a prescription for two pills that I would take two weeks apart. That was it! They went away almost immediately. Every once in a while I would think about what life was like before and how much better it was now that my butt was not constantly itchy.
Fast forward to a night in January 2019 when I was about to go to bed; something down there felt a little off, and I quickly realized that I had pinworms. (Not super surprising since I am a nanny and one of the kids I take care of had them the previous summer.) I knew I would need to clean all my bedding, linens, potentially infected pants, scrub down my bathroom, and take that over-the-counter banana flavored chalk medication. I quickly showered, stripped my bed, and got several loads of laundry going before hustling to Walgreens before they closed. This time I decided to do things differently! I was going to deal with it immediately and be more open about it. Although I was up late that night, I felt empowered by my ability to handle the situation with pragmatism and honesty.
It was not empowering the second, third, or fourth time I got pinworms in 2019.
One of those times I took every machine-washable item in my apartment to the laundromat and rented a carpet cleaner. I wanted to eliminate every possibility of reinfection.
I started taking double doses of the medication (don’t worry, I asked the pharmacist if it was okay). I also did research about other medication options. Maybe the one I was taking was not affective for my body. The drug I took that cost about $10 in 2011 would now cost me $600 with insurance, so I tried another option that was closer to $35.
There did not seem to be much rhyme or reason as to why they kept coming back. Pinworms can survive a few weeks without a host and someone can be infected (and infecting) for several months without realizing.
The last time I got pinworms in November 2019 I decided that I had had enough! I did all my usual cleaning, but decided I would just keep taking the OTC medication every two weeks five or six times, instead of just twice. I took my last dose about a month ago, and I have been imagining pinworm symptoms and having pinworm nightmares a couple times a week ever since. I feel like it is only a matter of time before I have them again.
Am I exceptionally unhygienic? Or especially unlucky? Or am I possibly being punished by the universe for not telling anyone about my pinworms from age 9-18? Was it possible the pinworms I evicted in my teens had built a tiny city in my bowels with condos, pools, and shopping malls, and I am now a highly attractive host?
I feel like the only good that can come from my experience is to shed light on it! Pinworms are extremely common, spread very easily, and are nothing to be embarrassed about. Knowledge is power! Tell everyone.
In the meantime I will contemplate making the pinworm home remedy of a raw garlic paste for my anus.
