A patient walked into the ER complaining of hip pain after a nasty fall. They walked out with a shocking diagnosis: their body was filled with calcified parasites.
Emergency physician Dr. Sam Ghali shared the X-ray on X (formerly Twitter), calling it “one of the most insane” he’d ever seen.
“The film is littered with these linear densities,” he said in his video. “They’re innumerable. You can’t even begin to count them all.”
The Culprit: Pork Tapeworm Larvae
Those mysterious shapes? Larval cysts of Taenia solium — better known as the pork tapeworm. Here’s how it works:
- Person A eats raw or undercooked pork, becoming infected with tapeworms.
- They pass tapeworm eggs in their feces.
- Person B consumes those eggs — often indirectly, through contaminated food or poor handwashing.
The larvae can migrate anywhere in the body. Over time, they harden, creating a pattern known as rice grain calcification.
The Scary Part
In this case, the patient had no symptoms and wasn’t in immediate danger. The parasites were only spotted because of the X-ray after their fall.
But if the larvae travel to the brain — a condition called neurocysticercosis — things turn dangerous fast. That can cause headaches, confusion, seizures, and even death.
Bottom line: Wash your hands. Keep your food clean. And never, ever eat raw or undercooked pork.
