“These things have been plaguing my family for 3 years plus” says this reader in Kalamazoo, Michigan, who worries about the “mostly translucent” organisms which “have completely brought down [her family’s] quality of living.” Our reader states that she “needs answers”, and has thus come to us.

To begin with, we must make clear that we will unfortunately not be able to provide the answers that our reader is looking for. This is because our reader states that the organisms have caused digestive issues, constipation, loose stool and itchiness in her three year-old son, which tells us that this situation is medical in nature. As such, we are not qualified to identify the organisms, as doing so would be tantamount to providing a diagnosis, and we are not medical professionals.

Instead, what we will do is point our reader in the direction of where she can go for help from a qualified physician. Before we do that, we think it important to relay the rest of our reader’s story.

Our reader’s submission begins with her informing us that she “read the clothes moth larvae article because it sounds very similar and the pictures look like the countless photos [she has]in her phone.”

Firstly, what we will say here is that we have not included most of the photos and videos in order to protect the privacy of her son, and because some of the photos are too explicit for our website. Nonetheless, we appreciate that our reader did send in as much material as she did, as this is the rule of thumb when submitting a question to All About Worms.

Secondly, clothes moth larvae are not harmful (being neither venomous or parasitic) and will thus not cause the symptoms our reader is referring to. They are also not translucent, nor do they look like “hair with a sharp point at one end” and have a “serrated tail”.

Clothes moth larvae are a cream-white color, with short, grubby bodies and are visible to the naked eye. So at the very least, we can tell our reader right away that whatever is causing these medical issues are not clothes moth larvae.

They are indeed pests that will chew holes through people’s clothes, and sources do indicate that their presence can aggravate preexisting allergies, but they do not cause symptoms such as the ones our reader outlines.

Furthermore, she has noticed that her son will act as if something is “crawling on him”. “I believe they’re in our ears, nose, mouths, eyes” and “every hair follicle” states our reader.

She has herself experienced crawling sensations in her hair, as well as noticed that her hair has been “doing strange things like grabbing the edge of the sink with just the tip of the hair and standing straight up or moving around on [her] head like it’s alive and almost vibrating to the point where it appears blurry.”

Additionally, her eyelashes and hair have been falling out, and her skin looks “horrible.”

Although translucent and hair-like at one stage, the organisms look like “Y-shaped thread” at another stage.

Now, what we suggest is that our reader and her family consult a medical parasitologist. As opposed to GPs and ER doctors, who receive little to no training in the field of parasitology, medical parasitologists know how to treat problems of suspected parasitic infections, and they take their patients seriously.

What we can recommend is that our reader do one or more of the following:

1) Search for a medical parasitologist in Kalamazoo, Michigan using this directory of medical parasitology consultants: https://www.astmh.org/for-astmh-members/clinical-consultants-directory.
2) Search for a local parasitologist by doing a Google search for “medical parasitologist Kalamazoo, Michigan” or “tropical medicine specialist Kalamazoo, Michigan”.
3) Get in touch with Dr. Omar Amin at the Parasitology Center at https://www.parasitetesting.com.
Whichever way she chooses to go, we think it would be a good idea for our reader to show the person she consults all of the same photos and videos she shared with us, as this may aid the physician in diagnosing the problem.

To conclude, we sympathize for our reader and her family, and wish that they did not have to be going through something like this. We truly wish we could provide more direct help, but alas, we are neither capable, nor qualified to do so. For that reason, we hope that the resources listed above will lead to the answers our reader is looking for, and a solution to her family’s medical concerns. We wish them all the best!

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