Most of us are pretty cool about earthworms. Some of us don’t even mind snakes, but the idea of a threadworm wriggling out of your bottom is enough to make most people reel in utter disgust. The good news is they don’t usually cause any symptoms, and indeed certainly don’t cause harm, but even so.

You catch threadworms by swallowing an egg. That takes two weeks to survive or to grow into a threadworm in your small bowel, and it then moves to your large bowel for about six weeks. At night, that threadworm can come out and lay up to 10,000 eggs when it’s nice and quiet, just in the skin around the anus.

Those eggs can then get caught on the fingernails or on the hands, and of course they can survive for up to two weeks outside the body, get transferred onto surfaces, onto food, into someone else’s mouth, you get the picture.

Well, they are easily treated with a single tablet for every member of the family. You don’t need a prescription. You can get it from your pharmacist, but that’s only part of the solution. The really important part is to remain clean at all times.

Make sure that you clean all your towels, your bedding, your clothes, and more all at the same time, as this could help get rid of possible egg locations all at once. Don’t wash your clothes or sort the clothes in the bathroom. You do not want to go sprinkling those eggs when you off the clothes onto your toothbrush.