Pinworms and How to Get Rid of Them

Pinworms are a parent’s nightmare. Ask me how I know…

Here’s a little background on pinworms from our favorite CDC website:

What is a pinworm?
A pinworm (“threadworm”) is a small, thin, white roundworm (nematode) called Enterobius vermicularis that sometimes lives in the colon and rectum of humans. Pinworms are about the length of a staple. While an infected person sleeps, female pinworms leave the intestine through the anus and deposit their eggs on the surrounding skin.

What are the symptoms of a pinworm infection?
Pinworm infection (called enterobiasis or oxyuriasis) causes itching around the anus which can lead to difficulty sleeping and restlessness. Symptoms are caused by the female pinworm laying her eggs. Symptoms of pinworm infection usually are mild and some infected people have no symptoms.

Who is at risk for pinworm infection?
Pinworm infection occurs worldwide and affects persons of all ages and socioeconomic levels. It is the most common worm infection in the United States. Pinworm infection occurs most commonly among

• school-aged and preschool-aged children,

• institutionalized persons, and

• household members and caretakers of persons with pinworm infection.

Pinworm infection often occurs in more than one person in household and institutional settings. Child care centers often are the site of cases of pinworm infection.

So why do some people get pinworms and others don’t?

British researchers have identified a protein that exists in some people's gut mucus that seems to be toxic to parasitic worms. Those with the protein are able to ward off infection, while those who lack the protein are more easily infected with the parasites, researchers said.

In my experience, pinworms became a thing in our household due to use of antibiotics. We all know that antibiotics wreck your microbiome - and although we avoid them as much as possible, there are some situations (like going under for surgery) where you can’t get out of taking them. As a result, we were blessed with pinworms.

Without going too far into personal details for the protection of my children, I’ll leave it as this: the child who had antibiotics had a horrible case of pinworms, whereas the child who did not have antibiotics had a very small amount of them and stopped having them sooner.

Pinworms are a pain in the butt (literally) if they enter your home. They can live under your nails (from scratching your butt or digging in dirt where they live - aka gardening). They are able to get into your body by being injected or breathed in (aka sniffing your fingers). It’s a tell tale sign that someone has pinworms when they scratch their butt and sniff their fingers. And if you think I’m only referring to kids here, I am not. There are many adults who do the same thing. But WHY? Well, parasites can legitimately control your thinking. They weasel your way into your system and then tell your body that you want to scratch your butt and then smell it. This is literally how the parasites ensure their survival. Once an infected person does a scratch and sniff, the eggs that were on the butt then become reintroduced to their body via their nose.

How to get rid of pinworms:

Night Taping

If you notice your child scratching and sniffing, or even just scratching their butt more - you can do the flashlight test to check for pinworms. At night, once your child has been sleeping for an hour or so, bring a flashlight, piece of paper (towel or toilet paper work well, too) and a roll of tape. Let the child know before they fall asleep that you will be doing this and make sure you get proper consent. Once you guys have had that conversation, when they are sleeping, pull down their undies and us a flashlight to check their butthole. Pinworms come out at night to lay their eggs and you will 100% know if your child has pinworms. If you see worms, take the tape and start dabbing the pinworms with the tape to remove them and place your pinworm tape onto the paper you have with you. You will want to re-tape them every single night - ESPECIALLY around the full moon. Pinworms come out to play in the masses around the full moon. If your child had a lot of pinworms, plan on doing 2 tapings per night, spaced out by a few hours.

Changing sheets, undies and towels after use

This one is the biggest pain in the butt because it requires so much laundry to be done, but it’s necessary. The pinworm eggs are so little, they can easily get on other surfaces and spread to other family members. Pinworms can survive on surfaces for 2-3 weeks, so it’s important to get rid of them. Each day you will change undies from the night before and place them in the wash. After each bath you will take their towel and place it in the wash. Anything that touches a butt or is close to a butt becomes a one time use item. In the wash, change your settings to hot water and make sure that you are keeping up with washing the laundry. Pinworms are something you want to get ahead of so that you can end the cycle.

Adjust your child’s PH

Don’t let your worms get cozy in your intestines…You can shake things up by mixing up a special drink for them to take with apple cider vinegar, fresh squeeze lemon juice and a very tiny bit of honey to help it go down.

Do a Round the Parify Kit
(for the whole family)

Our family saw great results from using MrsRogers.Hood’s Parity Kit (use discount code: FarmFreshFamily). Each adult needs their own kit, but if you have a child 6 or under, they can share a parity kit with an adult - so for our family of four, we only needed two kits to do a one month round of detoxing. This detox is gentle, yet effective for removing pinworms among other worms!

We added our a little bit of organic fruit juice to our tincture dosage to help with the flavor. I've seen people take it straight up - and I’m sure I could do it, but I have no desire to.

Do Coffee Enemas (or coffee bulbs for littles)

Please note, this is not medical advice. Any time I am doing any kind of detox or cleanse from parasites, I always tag team it with Coffee Enemas. A coffee bulb is something you’d need to talk to your medical team about to see if it’s a good fit to help jumpstart the detoxing of the pinworms and flushing out their intestinal tract.