Symptoms of Parasites

The term "parasites" is used to indicate an organism that lives in a host or off another organism. Humans commonly are the favorite host of over 100 different kinds of parasites. Symptoms of parasites may show once these organisms interact with human host. They may cause sickness for a temporary period until the body's immune systems fights and destroys it or, the parasites destroys and weakens the body's life system over hours, days, or weeks. These small organisms can be transmitted by contact in either water or air. In general they can infect almost every part of the human body such as abdomen, chest, diaphragm, hands, feet, genitals, digestive tract, blood, respiratory tract, muscles, buttocks, skin, liver, and upper arms. With these range of human body parts that could be invaded by these small killers, ways to prevent them should be done.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it is estimated that over one quarter of the world's population are infected or suffering from intestinal parasitic infections, the most common parasite attack. With this statistics, it is important to know and be aware of what these parasites can do to the human body. Here are the most common symptoms of parasites. The top one is constipation. Worms or parasites come in varying sizes and shapes. Sometimes they can cause obstruction to certain human organs such as the intestine thus, making it hard for one to eliminate. Second is diarrhea. Certain parasites such as protozoa produce a prostaglandin that creates sodium and chloride which causes watery stools.

The third most common symptoms of parasites are gas and bloating. Some parasites live in the upper small intestines where the inflammation they cause triggers bloating and gas. Fourth is irritable bowel movement. Once parasites inflame and irritate the intestinal walls, various gastro-intestinal symptoms can be prevalent. Fifth is joints and muscle pains. When parasites migrate to encyst on joint fluids, pain becomes evident and this is usually mistaken to be caused by arthritis. Sixth most common symptom is Anemia. Some varieties of parasites attach themselves to the mucosal lining of the intestine and scavenge all the nutrients from the host. If massive parasites are present, these can altogether create blood loss.

Other common symptoms of parasites include allergy, skin conditions, granuiomas, nervousness, sleep disturbances, teeth grinding, chronic fatigue, and immune dysfunction. All these conditions may greatly affect the human body. It would seem that this is an easy problem to diagnose and treat but actually it is hard. Parasites come in different size and shapes and stages of development and as a matter of fact, most lab tests miss them. So as a popular saying goes "prevention is better than cure", preventing possible contact with these parasites should be practiced.