Hello! can anyone suggest a site or app where I could upload a photo or video of a worm and have it “identfied” as best as possible by an expert?.. I discovered two rather long worms in a toilet with what appeared to be some residual feces. The toilet had not been used for maybe 3-4 days. This toilet is in a locked workshop and used by only 2-3 people max me included. So obviously disturbing. I took video and pictures of the worms then kept them and days later asked my doctor to perform parasite check on my feces. In explaining the situation at first he was first dismissive but after seeing the video took the issue more seriously. A quick google by him and he showed me pictures of roundworms (ascaris) looking very similar to my picture and video. I asked him if the actual worms could be Identified by the testing lab so he took them as well and sent them off with my stool sample.
Results Episode: My stool sample was “negative” for all the tests they conducted with exception to protozoa Endolimax Nana…
meanwhile I get a crazy result from the worms tested: “Specimen submitted is not a worm or arthropod of medical or public health importance”…. wtf? no genus, species? they don’t tell me what it actually is and they dont tell me what it isn’t either so I can rule out roundworms… they dont say if they even did a test to confirm or deny roundworms.
Obviously i am very concerned to get a more definitive and conclusive report of this testing as either myself or my family may be at risk… The unfathomable possibility that one of us just dumped dirt into the toilet and the source of the worms was from dirt and not our own feces exists but odds are these worms came from our poo and thus one of us is infected.
In closing while I am investigating with laboratory to get a more detailed report, i was hoping to find someone / anyone in this field to send my video and see what they think… give the source of the worms… our poo in our toilet only used by known family under lock and key… i have a very hard time accepting this test result??
Any recommendations as to where I can send my video for analysis???
This forum is not for ID help, so please don’t post videos here.
You can take some stills and post them to iNaturalist, but I suspect there aren’t many people identifying human parasites on iNat. You might try some sort of medical subreddit or something.
I hate to say this, but you’ll find that sort of thing is frequent on iNaturalist also. We have a lot of taxon experts here, but for many taxa, their expertise includes knowing that there are many possibilities that can’t be narrowed down from photos or video. It’s really frustrating, but that’s how biodiversity is.
The replies above touch on something, which is the intended use of the iNat Forum.
I would like to share some instruction that I received about how to use the iNat Forum. I’m sharing it not just for you, but also as a reminder to myself!
"The iNaturalist Forum is separate from the iNaturalist platform itself, and has somewhat different goals and its own set of Guidelines for use.
The key phrase in the first paragraph of those guidelines is constructive discussions. If your post had used the observation as an example to start a discussion (as @jasonhernandez74 started to do), ask a question, or otherwise request feedback on a relevant topic, then it would have been fine.
But simply posting an observation, is more what the iNaturalist platform itself is for, and you can tag interested people there to bring things to their attention.
iNaturalist pays for the Discourse platform used by the Forum based on the number of monthly page hits, so the reality is that they have to maintain some boundaries and focus for the content here."
Thanks everyone for the replies! I was not asking to use this forum to submit my video and picture rather to ask your community the proper place /website /university/agency to do so… a name, url, email etc. where there would be qualified people to take 5 seconds to look at my video and comment. Do I need to contact CDC? i would imagine there exists a friendly forum or professional could assist me not with any guaranteed analysis from only a video but at least enough probable ID to help me in my discussions with my medical professionals.
Again if anyone knows anyone willing to look at my video I would be forever grateful thanks
You should upload your observation to iNaturalist, as there is a possibility that the worm was, e.g., deposited by a fly, rather than coming from your stool.
This could be one reason why the lab stated that it was not a worm of medical importance.
We cannot speculate without seeing what you found.