I hate to admit I was not watching my 1 year old close enough yesterday outside when playing with her brothers, then my son picked her up and put her near an area that our outdoor cat often uses for dumping, it is a sandy area. I screamed when I seen what was in her mouth!! This cat is about a year old & has not been wormed, never seen anything in her stools- but sometimes you can't see them, I guess. I did not know until today HOW imporantant that is!! I have been reading alot about this Dog & cat Parasite -also called Visceral Larva Migrans on the net and am QUITE frightened. Has anyone delt with this fear , or learned their child (often those who love to put things in their mouth outside) might have this Parasidic condition? I need to know when is the EARLIEST I can get testing (how accuarate it is), what testing is done for a 1 year old, and if anti-parasidic drugs are prescribed -if this KILLS the parasites immediately, and everything is good, or is it hit or miss. Once symtoms begin, is it too late to turn things around ? I have read more about how to Prevent this - than what Accually happens once it has been ingested -- if the child does infact have this diagnosis. I have read soooo many baby Health Books all my life -- but they never seem to mention this DANGEROUS Problem or give stern warnings on WHY gettting your pets wormed could potentially save a child's life. I will never look at dirt the same way again!! These eggs they ingest could eventually damage their eyes, lungs, kidneys & heart. It is rare I guess but still - this is not talked about enough! I want to hear from others who know something about this. Thank you.
:confused:

I hate to admit I was not watching my 1 year old close enough yesterday outside when playing with her brothers, then my son picked her up and put her near an area that our outdoor cat often uses for dumping, it is a sandy area. I screamed when I seen what was in her mouth!! This cat is about a year old & has not been wormed, never seen anything in her stools- but sometimes you can't see them, I guess. I did not know until today HOW imporantant that is!! I have been reading alot about this Dog & cat Parasite -also called Visceral Larva Migrans on the net and am QUITE frightened. Has anyone delt with this fear , or learned their child (often those who love to put things in their mouth outside) might have this Parasidic condition? I need to know when is the EARLIEST I can get testing (how accuarate it is), what testing is done for a 1 year old, and if anti-parasidic drugs are prescribed -if this KILLS the parasites immediately, and everything is good, or is it hit or miss. Once symtoms begin, is it too late to turn things around ? I have read more about how to Prevent this - than what Accually happens once it has been ingested -- if the child does infact have this diagnosis. I have read soooo many baby Health Books all my life -- but they never seem to mention this DANGEROUS Problem or give stern warnings on WHY gettting your pets wormed could potentially save a child's life. I will never look at dirt the same way again!! These eggs they ingest could eventually damage their eyes, lungs, kidneys & heart. It is rare I guess but still - this is not talked about enough! I want to hear from others who know something about this. Thank you.
:confused:
I think you mean Toxoplasma...i.e. Toxoplasma gondii....the bacteria that is often present in cat's feces.

What do you want to know about it?

No, accaully I don't mean Toxoplasma, in fact, after my child did this, I went looking for Toxoplasma information & stumpled upon this "Toxocara" (out of 10 health baby books I have, ONLY ONE had this info in it -- and that is a shame -given the severity of this --even though it is RARE, only 10,000 a year , when it involves the eye, it can take many years and sometimes the Doctors misdiagnose it as Eye cancer and when they remove the eye, they find a worm). I found a ton of links on the net about it, the ones that give the most detail give you the difference between the worms going to the Eye compared to the heart, brain, liver, etc -with that a Blood test can detect it, not with the EYE involvement. Very strange. And then many cases have just a fever, or not many symtoms & it resolves on it's own- sometimes in a time frame of 6 to 18 months. Happily this morning, I got the results of my cats stool tested after worrying frantically all weekend, and no worms or Eggs were found !! Here are some links about this particular parasidic disease or infection (what is so frightening is ..it can take weeks, sometimes months or even years (if it involved the EYE) to show up in your system and So often is Misdiagnosed)... http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/pphb-dgspsp/msds-ftss/msds152e.html and http://******************/health/ency/adam/000633 . It is also called "Visceral larva migrans" and when it involves the eye called "Ocular larva migrans".

I don't know why my links didn't work out right, you can look Toxocara up on Google and find out ALOT about this very rare, potentially serious parasidic condition that harbers itself in dirt that our children play in every day.

Interesting! I really hadn't ever heard of this! I'm going to do some reading! Thanks overrunwithsons!

You are very welcome, I find it a shame SO few children's books have this mentioned, even the lady I know who is studying to be a Vet assistant was not aware of this -until she looked it up. I have talked with of ton of people this past weekend, most in my Church and only ONE person heard of this, and it was because she knew a lady who bought an old farm house that had a TON of cats beforehand, and she was doing a major cleaning in this barn and she came down with this Toxocara and she got very very sick and it lasted a long time. That is all this lady from church knew as she hasn't seen her in years. They say these eggs can get under your fingernails, I imagine that is how she got it - while cleaning. So even adults must be careful. I just heard in the news today something about a Parasidic condition that a Yankee player got, but it is not this. His name is "Giambi" and his disease is Entamoeba Histolytica.
Another interesting thing I learned while reading .... this has nothing to do with Parasites, but the health of your eyes... .. and you won't find this in a baby book either, This one Mother noticed her one child only got RED eye in ONE EYE every time she took pictures with her camera & it was always the same eye , so she became concerned, mentioned this to her DOc, and here she did have Cancer of the EYE, and caught it in time and her daughter is fine today. So everytime you take pictures and get RED eyes, be assured --this is a Good thing. I thought they very interesting.