The Seriously Freaky Cause of This Man’s Headaches: Tapeworms

He said doctors told him the parasitic larva was cutting off water flow in his brain and he likely only had about 30 minutes to live.

Doctors used a tool with a camera to perform emergency brain surgery and discovered the larvae of a parasitic tapeworm that had formed in a cyst blocking off circulation inside Luis’ brain.

Further investigation suggested that Mr Ortiz did not have tapeworms, said Dr Singel.

Ortiz’s neurosurgeon, Dr. Soren Singel, said Ortiz made it to the hospital in the nick of time.

His mother said Ortiz appeared disoriented. “But I don’t know how long that worm was in my head for”. For now, Ortiz says, “I have been staying away from pork”. Ortiz said, “The doctor pulled it out and he said it was still wiggling…what are the odds I’d get a parasite in my head?”

The surgery and the aftermath have greatly impacted his life, Ortiz said.

During the first days of September, Ortiz had been skateboarding on a warm day when the pain increased. He can’t drive or work.

“My memory is like a work in progress”, he said. “It gets better from therapy”, he added, but he has to remind himself to do his memory exercises. All of a sudden, he reported suffering from one of the worst headaches he ever felt, and his mother immediately called 911.

Doctors said that the parasite might have entered his body after he consumed raw pork, swam in a river or visited a developing country, according to Newsy.

But that could cause an intestinal parasite, not the brain cyst that Ortiz had.

Singel suspects Ortiz ate something that contained tapeworm eggs, with the larvae making its way to his intestines and then brain.

He said several California patients got tapeworms after eating pork in Mexico and South and Central America, largely due to the lack of proper food inspection in those regions.