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Monsters Inside Me

 

MONSTERS INSIDE ME
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sleeper cells   EPISODE 1 of 6: Sleeper Cells
These killers lie dormant, waiting for the right time to strike. Eleven-month-old Garrett Richardson ingests the eggs of a worm, and within days the creature travels to his brain and goes about feeding on its tissue. A Vietnam veteran survived the enemy attacks on the front lines, but back at home — unknown to him — a killer is stealthily working its way through his body, laying waste to his organs and lymph system. By the time the medical evidence reveals the source many years later, the killer is long gone. And John Figge and many of his family members live for six years with unwanted hitchhikers from Africa traveling around in their bodies. Only when one of these creatures begins to attack John's brain are they discovered. Can the family get rid of these deadly parasites before the damage is critical?

These are all stealthy predators that get inside their hosts, yet work on very different timetables. Dangerous and often hard to detect, this is the story of the war on sleeper cell parasites.

video THE VIDEO: The Brain-Eating Parasite (Baylisascaris) | The 40-Year Parasite (Filariasis) | Parasite Causes Elephantiasis (Filariasis) | Parasites Nest in Brain (Shistosomiasis) | The "Snail Fever" Parasite (Schistosomiasis)

MEET THE PARASITES: Baylisascaris and Raccoon Roundworm Infection | Wuchereria bancrofti and Lymphatic Filariasis | Schistosoma mansoni and Schistosomiasis

outbreak   EPISODE 2 of 6: Outbreak!
Across the United States, doctors and scientists are fighting a war against some of nature's deadliest creatures — parasites. It is a race against time when a mysterious organism strikes a mid-western city causing the worst parasitic outbreak in the history of the United States. Before the culprit is contained, 100 innocent people have died. In Chicago, doctors must track down a hidden killer that attacks a group of students on a spring break trip, and a flesh-eating monster is on the loose in a Texas community.

video THE VIDEO: Cryptosporidium Outbreak | The Cryptosporidium Parasite | The Rat Lungworm | Scarring from Sandfly Bites (Leishmaniasis) | The Flesh-Eating Parasite (Leishmaniasis)

MEET THE PARASITES: Rat Lungworm and Angiostrongyliasis | Cryptosporidium and "Crypto" | Leishmania and Cutaneous Leishmaniasis

sex maniacs   EPISODE 3 of 6: Sex Maniacs
Perfecting the art of reproduction have made parasites the most successful life form on the planet. There are some who are violent, manipulative and have taken sex to the extreme. These parasites are sex maniacs.

A New Jersey woman finds her apartment infested with one of the most ubiquitous parasites on earth — bed bugs. Part of the reason for their success is the males' aggressive approach to sex, a method known as "traumatic insemination." A cyclist from Colorado discovers that the insect bites on his head are from botflies. In Oklahoma, a chemical sprayer's cough turns out to be the result of parasitic worms that multiply in the human lung.

video THE VIDEO: Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite | Bedbugs, Food and Sex | Bedbugs Feed on Arm | Maggots In My Head (Botfly) | Invasion of the Botfly | Parasite Nests in Lungs (Lung Fluke) | The Lung Fluke | Screwworms Devour Flesh

MEET THE PARASITES: The Common Bedbug | The Human Botfly | The Screwworm | The Lung Fluke

masters of disguise   EPISODE 4 of 6: Masters of Disguise
Parasites are ruthless, single-minded and above all devious. To become the most prolific life forms in the world takes a degree of cunning that others can only marvel at. Meet the most deceptive parasites on the planet, the "Masters of Disguise."

Teenager Mallorie Greiner has Acanthamoeba keratitis, a parasite that's intent on eating her cornea. Doctors are bewildered at first because her symptoms look just like herpes. Runner Rick DiMichele is struck down with a debilitating disease. Initially, doctors think it's cancer, then malaria; eventually, they discover he has a tick-borne disease called Babesiosis. And not until he's staring death in the face do Mohammed Meah's doctors find the real cause of his problem: a parasitic worm called Strongyloides that's been lurking undetected in his small intestine and living off the steroids he was taking to combat his colitis.

video THE VIDEO: Parasites Invade Eyeball (Acanthamoeba keratitis) | The Eye-Eating Parasite (Acanthamoeba keratitis) | Threadworm Invades Body (Strongyloides) | Threadworm Lives In Bowels (Strongyloides) | The Tick-Borne Parasite (Babesiosis)

MEET THE PARASITES: The Acanthamoeba Parasite | Strongyloides stercoralis, aka Threadworm | Babesia and Babesiosis

living with the enemy   EPISODE 5 of 6: Living With the Enemy
Across the planet, a battle is raging, between parasites and their hosts. There is hardly an organism on this planet that doesn't have parasites that are trying to get at it. Some parasites destroy their hosts with terrifying speed, while others have a more cunning strategy: they keep their host alive for as long as possible. They lurk inside the body and steal their host's nutrients. Some of these parasites are almost impossible to kill. They can evade the immune systems. They can hide in the darkest recesses of the body, and they can survive the most powerful drugs. Once they strike, their victims are condemned to a life sentence of living with the enemy inside them.

In Virginia a young woman is attacked by an invincible brain-eating monster that threatens to take her life. A Midwestern farmer does battle with a beast that cannot be killed and a New Yorker is infected with the deadliest parasite on the planet. Three parasites that are almost impossible to destroy; three victims, fighting for their lives. If doctors cannot cure them their only hope of survival is by living with the enemy inside them.

video THE VIDEO: The Pork Tapeworm | Meter-Long Pork Tapeworm | The Malaria Parasite (Plasmodium) | The Toxoplasma Parasite

MEET THE PARASITES: Malaria and the Plasmodium Parasite | The Pork Tapeworm and Cysticercosis | Toxoplasmosis and Toxoplasma gondii

hijackers   EPISODE 6 of 6: Hijackers
Nature is a war zone and parasites are the ultimate fighters. They are hungry, they are ruthless and they don't play by the rules. Parasites have evolved countless ways of hijacking their hosts' bodies: some steal food from inside the gut, others lurk in the blood sapping their host's nutrients and some even target their host's brain.

These are some of the most horrific cases of parasitic infection in the United States. In Virginia a vicious creature is on the rampage, its next victim is an innocent child. In Michigan a brutal killer has invaded a traveler's blood, and a summer's day at a Florida lake turns into a nightmare when a ruthless monster attacks a young boy's brain.

video THE VIDEO: Parasite Eats Boy's Eye (Toxocariasis) | The Puppy-Borne Parasite (Toxocara) | African Sleeping Sickness | Symptoms of African Sleeping Sickness | The Brain-Eating Amoeba (Naegleria fowleri)

MEET THE PARASITES: African Sleeping Sickness, aka Trypanosomiasis | Brain-Eating Amoeba, aka Naegleria fowleri | Toxocariasis and the Toxocara Roundworm
 
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