A volunteer on a charity sanitation project in Madagascar almost died after tapeworms burrowed into her brain.

According to Daily Mail, Sherry Fuller, 40, is thought to have picked up the worms from contaminated food or water.

When she returned to England she began to suffer with intense headaches that developed into frequent seizures, but doctors were baffled by her condition.

Eventually, a consultant neurosurgeon diagnosed neurocysticercosis, a rare condition in which a person becomes infested with pork tapeworm.

The worms get into the intestine and migrate to the muscles and brain where they form cysts.

In Ms Fuller’s case, she was found to have larvae in her brain that were the size of a 5p coin.

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‘We were working with children and there was nowhere for them to wash their hands,’ said Ms Fuller, an information officer with Southend Council, Essex.

‘When I got home, I started having headaches but did not really realise anything was wrong with me.

‘Then I started to have seizures. They were passed off as panic attacks.

‘I was having four or five seizures a day. I went to my doctor who looked into my right eye. Part of it was black because of the swelling.

‘I was sent for a scan. At first, it was thought I had tumours. It was a miracle how well I was doing given how much of my brain was swollen.’

Ms Fuller was sent from Southend Hospital to the Royal London Hospital to see a neurological specialist.

He reassured her that she did not have a brain tumour but suggested that it could be HIV or TB.

Eventually, however, tropical medicine experts diagnosed her with neurocysticercosis.

She said: ‘That was after three weeks which was a really frightening time.

‘I was so unwell. My brain was not working and I was traumatised by the whole ordeal.

‘It was a long time before I could sleep because I was worried I would not wake up again.’

Ms Fuller, of Westcliff, Essex, says that she was strangely relieved to be told that she had tapeworm as it meant she could be cured.

She said: ‘The larvae in my brain were about the size of a 5p which was why it was causing me a problem.

‘The doctors gave me a worming tablet which kills the larvae.’

However, Ms Fuller’s ordeal was not to end there.

Her body reacted badly to the treatment and her arms, legs, and back swelled.

She was given steroids to deal with the side effects and anti-epilepsy drugs stopped her fitting.

Making a full recovery has taken her two years.

‘I had a lot of anxiety,’ she said.

‘I don’t know if that was from the damage to the brain or from the trauma of the experience.

‘I had problems which are often associated with a brain injury. I could not switch off from sound and was over-sensitive to noise.

‘I remember coming back home from hospital and sitting in the garden thinking it would be relaxing.

‘It was overwhelming, horrendous. It is quite common to lose the sound filters.

‘When I went back to the office I had no filter at all. I could hear all the voices, the photocopier, everything. I just sat at my desk and cried.

‘I could also not make decisions. I could do logic puzzles but if someone asked me to make a decision about the smallest thing, it would throw me into a panic.

‘My concentration would waiver. It was obvious to other people I was different but I was oblivious.’

In hindsight, Ms Fuller wishes she had had the support of an organisation like Headway Essex, which cares for survivors of brain injuries, so she is now raising money for the charity.

Adapted from Daily Mail