Sushi Eater Pulls 5-Foot Tapeworm Parasite From His Body

An avid sushi fan made a trip to the Community Regional Medical Center (CRMC) in Fresno, California, after discovering a tapeworm coming out of his body when using the bathroom.

Dr. Kenny Bahn, who works at CRMC, shared the story of his sushi-loving patient Jan. 8 on "This Won't Hurt A Bit," a medical podcast. In an episode titled "Parasites," Bahn said that the young Asian male claimed to have suffered from blood-filled diarrhea before saying: "I really want to get treated for worms."

The patient informed the doctor that assumed his "guts were coming out" of his bottom, which led the man to believe he was dying. The long worm began to move after he pulled at it, however. Although the man continued to pull on the worm before eventually reaching its end, he still wasn't positive that he had retrieved the parasite's entire body.

"A lot of patients come up and say: 'I want to be treated for worms,'" Bahn said of his skepticism during the podcast. "Truthfully, a lot of the time, I don't think they have it but they think they have it because they feel something."

The doctor changed his perspective, however, after the patient showed the doctor proof. Bahn pulled a nearly finished toilet paper roll out of the patient's plastic grocery bag and noticed a large parasitic worm wrapped around it.

"I open it up and I take out a toilet paper roll...wrapped around it, of course, is what looks like this giant, long flat tapeworm," Bahn said.

Once unraveled, the tapeworm measured out to be 5 and a half feet long.

The patient realized that he likely caught the parasitic worm from his daily consumption of salmon sashimi. Therefore, he requested for medicated treatment to ensure that the tapeworm is fully removed from his body.

The sushi fan, however, has no intentions of consuming salmon again.

As cases of parasitic infections are on the rise, sushi consumption poses health risks due to its possible presence in fish or squid, according to a May 2017 report from the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

"Owing to changes in food habits, anisakiasis is a growing disease in Western countries, which should be suspected in patients with a history of ingestion of raw or uncooked fish," Dr. Joana Carmo said in the BMJ report. "Anisakiasis can mimic an acute surgical abdomen, [and an] endoscopy plays an important role in the diagnosis and treatment of gastric anisakiasis."