Australia's Channel 9 News reported on Jan. 15 that a young woman from Victoria, Australia, contracted a rare parasite while on holiday in Thailand, reminding tourists to learn from her experience.
Tess Swift, from Ocean Grove, south of Geelong, has been chronically ill for more than seven years, and she warned it could happen to anyone.
Soon after returning home from a family trip, Swift felt uncomfortable.
"A few weeks after we came back, I started to feel bad, but... We think it's because of eating different foods overseas. About four weeks after I returned, I woke up in the middle of the night with severe abdominal pain and nausea. ”
Tess Swift (Image: Channel 9 News)
Swift was admitted to the emergency room with his appendix removed. But the severe pain continued, and the nausea never stopped.
She said: "Nausea has been my biggest problem for the last seven and a half years. For the past seven and a half years, I haven't gone a day without nausea, and we've tried more than 20 medications to treat nausea with little success. ”
At the worst of 2019, Swift was hospitalized for six and a half weeks. Doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong.
"I went in and out of the hospital and was told all sorts of things, from 'we think you have an eating disorder' to 'it's just irritable bowel syndrome,' and thousands of other things in between."
(Image source: Australian Channel 9 News)
Her mother, Virginia Dickson-Swift, said it was a "challenging" time for her. After experts tested the rare parasite, she finally found the answer.
This is a disease caused by eating infected freshwater fish, birds, and reptiles that are undercooked or raw. This is especially prevalent in Thailand.
Swift and her mother decided to share their story to get attention and said they didn't want anyone to go through what they were going through.
(Image source: Australian Channel 9 News)
Swift said: "It's the craziest thing ever. I feel like it stole my life for 7 years. I missed a lot of social time in my 20s. ”
Dickson-Swift urged anyone with health problems like her daughter to continue seeking answers. "If your situation is a little different, keep finding answers for yourself and keep pushing things forward," she said. ”