It's Not a Tumor - Doctors Find Worm In Woman's Brain Instead

[Mugu]

foxnews.com

Doctors in Arizona thought a Phoenix-area woman had a possible brain tumor, but it turned out there was something else penetrating her brain – a worm.

Rosemary Alvarez started experiencing numbness in her arm and blurred vision. She went to the emergency room twice and had a cat scan, but everything came up clear, MyFOXPhoenix.com reported.

It wasn’t until doctors took a closer look at an MRI that they discovered something very disturbing.

“Once we saw the MRI we realized this is something not good,” neurosurgeon, Dr. Peter Nakaji told the news station. “It's something down in her brain stem which is as deep in the brain as you can be.”

Alvarez was wheeled into surgery where Nakaji and his colleagues were expecting to remove a tumor, but they uncovered a worm instead.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,455067,00.html">Complete article

[Junkdrawer]

1. Was it singing "FreeCreditReport.com" ???

:shrug:

[KitchenWitch]

3. dude, that is not funny.

[backscatter712]

11. No, it was singing "Hello my baby, hello my darling, hello my ragtime gaaaaaal..."

Send me a kiss by wire, baby my heart's on fire!
If you refuse me, honey you'll lose me, and you'll be left alone,
So baby telephone, and tell me I'm your ooooooooown!

:evilgrin:

[greguganus]

23. Damn...you have the same warped sense of human as I do! n/t

[and-justice-for-all]

56. Now that is pretty damn funny...!

[Subdivisions]

15. I know it's wrong, but...

I burst out laffin' when I read that.

Damn commercials!

[alpizzy]

16. That's a DUzy!!! nt

[progressoid]

17. ....!!

:spray::spray::spray::spray::spray::spray:

[EFerrari]

24. "I should've seen it coming at me like an atom bomb!"

:rofl:

[midnight]

2. That is some kind of worm they have in Arizona....

Poor women.

[samdogmom]

4. How did it get there and where did it come from?

Inquiring minds TRULY want to know!

[derby378]

12. I remember one case documented in OMNI magazine back in the 70's...

There was this guy who developed blurry vision in one eye, so his ophthalmalogist took a good look and discovered that, shucky-darn, the man had a plant growing in his eyeball! The plant was successfully removed during surgery, and the man's sight was restored.

Somehow, a seed was driven into the patient's eye, but just how is uncertain. A good wind storm might do it. But once the seed gets embedded in the eye, there's enough moisture in the eye that the seed can grow and flourish.

Migrating from the eye to the brain is a different matter. I'm more inclined to say that this woman ate food contaminated with worm eggs, and this one little guy survived the trip through her stomach and just made his happy little way through the rest of her body.

[Fleshdancer]

21. I don't see how a worm could survive the stomach acids

Could it get up there by entering the ear or nose? :shrug:

[Hekate]

40. It's a parasite. Different sorts of worms can live in the gut, the muscles, the brain...

Guinea worm causes blindness. Others inhabit the liver. Trichinosis lives in the muscles, causing pain.

They're creepy and disgusting and have ecological niches all throughout the human body. They have many ways of entering: food, unwashed hands, through the skin via dirt or water, and insect bites.

The brain-stem makes me shudder -- but a little girl locally picked up a parasite from raccoon feces left in the dirt of her preschool playground, and it ended up causing brain damage.

Hekate

[Fleshdancer]

44. well hell

for the first time in my life, I can understand how ignorance IS bliss. :scared:

[Hekate]

46. Sorry. LOL. I have an interest in public health and can't seem to help myself.

I try to avoid doing this at the dinner table, though.

Hekate

[Fleshdancer]

54. LOL!

:rofl:

As creepy as the subject is, I love that people like you are educated enough to let people like me know these things. :D

[greguganus]

25. That could be a new way to grow pot. n/t

[louis-t]

5. I was expecting National Enquirer as source.

Faux news, same thing. Yuck.

[MrScorpio]

6. Wait, wait, don't tell me... It turned, right? nt

[asjr]

14. LOL

[greguganus]

26. stoppppppppppppp!! lol n/t

[AnneD]

7. A Nurse friend told me about that happening to the team once....

woman was from another country.....Wonder about this woman-or at least where she has traveled.

[rurallib]

8. Seeing it is a FUX news station, I am curious about the veracity

skeptical, skeptical am I

[lapfog_1]

9. I saw that episode of "House"

only they almost killed her 3 times by treating her for things she didn't have.

[GreenPartyVoter]

31. I remember that

[Neshanic]

10. You guys laugh about Palin takin over. This is just the start. Be afraid.

[EOTE]

13. I won't believe it until Arnold tells me.

OK then. There you have it, it's not a tumor.

[DearAbby]

32. Arnold would say....."It's not a toomar"

It's a Woorm!

[Leopolds Ghost]

53. IT'S NAHT ACH TOOMAH!!!

Jinx!

[Historic NY]

18. As the worm turns.

[Subdivisions]

19. What a beautiful lady and family. I'm so

glad she's ok.

WASH YOUR HANDS!

[dipsydoodle]

20. Tha's put me right off

my spaghetti.

[DS1]

22. I can only imagine what her liver looks like

/rimshot

[EFerrari]

27. LOL!

[and-justice-for-all]

58. LOL...I just peed a little!!! nt

[NoodleyAppendage]

28. Neurocystercercosis. Second biggest reason for seizures in South American peoples.

Eat pork that is poorly cooked or uncooked and you too might get worms in the brain. It's not as uncommon as it sounds. It's just uncommon here in the states, but becoming more prevalent with the increased minorities from S. America and Mexico. The high pork diets from those cultures set them up for greater risk.

J

[W_HAMILTON]

39. How do they end up in the brain?

I'm curious.

[NoodleyAppendage]

42. Eggs travel through the blood stream...some of which make it to the brain.

After they get into the brain tissue they tend to go into a larval stage and cause spherical cysts similar to an egg sac. Often the process goes no further than the larval stage, but the cyst and dead larvae remain and become an "irritant." It is this disruptive nature of the cysts that is thought to be related to the development of seizures.

Google neurocystercercosis and images and you can see a few MRI images of the cystic larvae in the brain. It's pretty random where they end up. The case in question, I think, is unusual because the location was so low in the brain stem...pretty dangerous area to have worms or any problem.

J

[NoodleyAppendage]

43. Here's a good link.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1176337

Enjoy!

[Hassin Bin Sober]

48. There is a show called Eaten Alive on one of the ...

....educational channels. Discovery? Or one of the other channels.....

They highlight cases of bot flies, tape-worms, brain parasites, and stomach bugs etc.

It's not for the squeamish.

Anyway, they show a brain that was infested with those bugs. It looked like Swiss cheese.

Sacs of worms in the brain..... :scared:

[greguganus]

29. Arizona? Did it look like McCain? n/t

[LeftHander]

30. My Dad a ENT doc pulled a leech out of a guy's nose...

A Navy Seal....Guy kept having bloody noses and headaches...sinus pain.

He thought at first it was a bad sinus infection, but once he extracted some of it found it was a leech. It had been feeding on him and filled his sinuses. He surgically removed it bit by bit...

YUUUUCH!!!!

[Hassin Bin Sober]

47. I knew I shouldn't have opened this thread. I just knew it!

:scared:

[123infinity]

33. So her brain has Write Once Read Many memory?

bada bum
:D

[Blue_Tires]

34. "Allow me to introduce you to Ceti Alpha 5's only remaining indigenous life form..."

[backscatter712]

38. KHAAAAAAAAAN!!! n/t

[Indi Guy]

41. Yes it Khan!

;)

[dysfunctional press]

50. you forgot the pic that goes with that...

[soothsayer]

35. I had a friend (vietnam vet) who eventually died from that

Nice guy.

[stray cat]

36. Sounds like a helminth parasite rather than a free living worm - wonder what kind it was?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

37. and this is why you don't eat squirrels

nt

[IDemo]

45. I clicked on this expecting an Ann Coulter story...

[dysfunctional press]

49. KH-A-A-A-N!

[Cleita]

51. Fox News eh.

A woman with a Spanish name who eats undercooked pork and possibly doesn't wash her hand. Damn! :grr:

[LeftyMom]

52. KHAAAAAAN!

[opihimoimoi]

55. Its a Conservative Worm....the Cworms have returned...Oh noes....

[and-justice-for-all]

57. And so the invasion beings...nt