Is Albendazole Effective At Treating Pinworms?

Posted on Tue, 21 Nov 2023

Question: I need to find a doctor in the Los Angeles area who can prescribe me some medication like albendazole or just at least give me advice on what would be safe to take, to kill pinworms. I think it needs a multiple day treatment. I have had them for 4 months. I tried mebendazole a few times, and albendazole once, and nothing has worked. I think I caught these on a trip to Hong Kong last spring and I have had symptoms since late XXXXXXX

I have had the following treatments:

Emverm,tablet, early July, did not work; took 2nd Emverm dose after 1 week on the advice of my doctor; did not work

Pyrantel Palmoate over the counter pinworm medicine from Walgreen's Pharmacy, did not work.

Generic mebendazole 100 mg tablet twice a day for 3 days, did not work; I did this twice, once in July and once in September. I bought this medication on line. It was called "wormazole" and I assume it came from XXXXXXX

Vermox plus (mebendazole plus quinfaminide), single dose, 3 different times over the past 3 months, never worked. This medicine is manufactured by Janssen and is sold in Mexico.

Farmiver (albendazole single dose), once about a month ago, did not work. This medicine also is from Mexico.

In the meantime (Sept) my doctor prescribed me a ten day course of Flagyl because a stool culture revealed Endolimax Nana cysts in my stool.

Answered by Dr. Ramesh Kumar (8 hours later)

Brief Answer:
Severe worm infestation.

Detailed Answer:
Hello,
Thanks choosing HealthcareMagic for your query.
Have gone through your details and i appreciate your concerns.

I would suggest you to take Ivermectin with Albendazole.
Ivermectin stimulates excessive release of neurotransmitters in the peripheral nervous system of parasites. It is thought to work by paralysing the parasite or inactivating the parasite gut.

I would suggest you to take it in doses 6 mg once daily for 14 days.

Albendazole works by keeping the worm from absorbing sugar (glucose), so that the worm loses energy and dies.Using it with ivermectin provide dual level of action.

Rx
Tab Ivermectin 6 mg once daily.
Tab Albendazole 400 mg once daily (chew) before going to bed.

Take both of them for 14 days.

Get a stool test done after 14 days.

You need to get a prescription from any family physician for these medicines.

Regards!

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Kampana

Follow up: Dr. Ramesh Kumar (11 hours later)

Thank you very much for this information. I really appreciate it. I have followup questions: 1) I weigh 57 kg so is there a problem if I take the recommended dosages of the medications? One place I looked, it seemed to say that I need to weight at least 60 kg but I did not know if this really matters. 2) If I cannot find the Albendazole 400 mg chewable, is it OK to take two 200 mg Albendazole tablets instead? Because of the price of the albendazole I might buy it in Mexico and I think it may be easier to find the 200 mg tablets than the 400 mg tablets. I don't know if they have chewable versions in Mexico either. Thanks for your help!Also I forgot to mention, I just this morning got the results of a stool culture back (which had been collected on Oct 18th) and it still shows small amounts of Endolimax Nana (cysts and trophozoites) and Dientamoeba fragilis trophozoites. So my GP might try to prescribe me something else for this, but really I am suffering so much from the pinworms I would rather get rid of those ASAP first.

Answered by Dr. Ramesh Kumar (12 hours later)

Brief Answer:
Follow up.

Detailed Answer:
Hello agiain my dear patient,
1)No you can take the medication in doses recommended by me.

2)Yes you can take two albendazole 200 mg at a time but crush them by chewing don’t swallow them as tablet with water.
Chewable has the same salt with additional falvours.If you can’t get chewable take some honey after chewing normal tablets.

3)Endolimax and Dientameba is a genus of amoebozoa- As you are still positive for it continue taking Metronidazole in doses 750 mg thrice daily for 10 days.
However in case if you remain positive even after 10 days then treatment with nitazoxanide has to be given.Its very helpful in clearing organisms and improving symptoms in metronidazole resistant cases.
500 mg nitazoxanide orally twice daily for 3 days is usually given.

You can discuss this with your treating Gastroenterologist.

In case you need any other help feel free to follow up.

Thanks!

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Vishesh Rohatgi