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California man has tapeworm removed from his brain in life-saving surgery
Luís Ortíz, 26, became disoriented and started vomiting, and doctors found the larva embedded in a cyst that was stemming the flow of water to his brain
Nicky Woolf in New York
“I was shocked,” Ortiz said. “I just couldn’t believe something like that would happen to me. I didn’t know there was a parasite in my head trying to ruin my life.”Wednesday 4 November 2015 22.20 GMT
When the headaches first started in late August, Luís Ortíz tried to ignore them.
But after a day spent skateboarding in early September, the 26-year-old university student found the pain had become too much to bear.
Ortíz became disoriented, and when he started vomiting his mother rushed him to the hospital, where neurosurgeon Soren Singel found the real culprit: a tapeworm larva lodged in his brain.
Worse, it had embedded itself in a cyst that was stemming the flow of water to his brain, Singel told the Napa Valley Register.
Singel drilled a hole above Ortiz’s eyebrow and fished out the worm and the cyst with a neuroendoscope equipped with a grasping tool. “The worm was still wiggling when we pulled it out,” Singel told the Register.
Where the larva came from remains a mystery. Most likely, it entered his body as an egg in food – most likely pork. Ortiz told a local CBS affiliate that he had “no idea” where he might have gotten it.
But he was lucky to have arrived at the hospital when he did: Singel told the Register that another 30 minutes of the blockage, and Ortiz would have died.
The surgery and the aftermath have greatly affected his life, Ortiz said. He had to drop out of school, move back home and find a temporary place for his dog. He can’t drive or work.
“My memory is like a work in progress,” he said. “It gets better from therapy,” but he has to remind himself to do his memory exercises and other daily tasks.
Ortiz told CBS that the whole ordeal has given him a “new lease on life”, and he told the Register that he had also been “staying away from pork ever since”.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/04/california-man-tapeworm-brain
California man has tapeworm removed from his brain in life-saving surgery
Luís Ortíz, 26, became disoriented and started vomiting, and doctors found the larva embedded in a cyst that was stemming the flow of water to his brain
Nicky Woolf in New York
“I was shocked,” Ortiz said. “I just couldn’t believe something like that would happen to me. I didn’t know there was a parasite in my head trying to ruin my life.”Wednesday 4 November 2015 22.20 GMT
When the headaches first started in late August, Luís Ortíz tried to ignore them.
But after a day spent skateboarding in early September, the 26-year-old university student found the pain had become too much to bear.
Ortíz became disoriented, and when he started vomiting his mother rushed him to the hospital, where neurosurgeon Soren Singel found the real culprit: a tapeworm larva lodged in his brain.
Worse, it had embedded itself in a cyst that was stemming the flow of water to his brain, Singel told the Napa Valley Register.
Singel drilled a hole above Ortiz’s eyebrow and fished out the worm and the cyst with a neuroendoscope equipped with a grasping tool. “The worm was still wiggling when we pulled it out,” Singel told the Register.
Where the larva came from remains a mystery. Most likely, it entered his body as an egg in food – most likely pork. Ortiz told a local CBS affiliate that he had “no idea” where he might have gotten it.
But he was lucky to have arrived at the hospital when he did: Singel told the Register that another 30 minutes of the blockage, and Ortiz would have died.
The surgery and the aftermath have greatly affected his life, Ortiz said. He had to drop out of school, move back home and find a temporary place for his dog. He can’t drive or work.
“My memory is like a work in progress,” he said. “It gets better from therapy,” but he has to remind himself to do his memory exercises and other daily tasks.
Ortiz told CBS that the whole ordeal has given him a “new lease on life”, and he told the Register that he had also been “staying away from pork ever since”.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/04/california-man-tapeworm-brain