Bendigo woman warns of parasite risk following Thai holiday

That holiday has now turned into a seven-year nightmare.

In 2015, now 28-year-old Tess Swift went on a family vacation to Thailand like thousands of Australians each year.

She enjoyed sightseeing around the diverse country and went swimming and snorkelling on pristine beaches.

Sadly, her life has not been the same since she returned from the trip.

Tess now has a feeding tube and still suffers symptoms that make her feel unwell.

After years of feeling unwell and a lack of answers, she was finally diagnosed with gnathostomiasis last year - a rare infection that most often results from the ingestion of larvae in raw or under-cooked food.

"I had just a little bit of a stomach upset when we came back from Thailand and I guess we didn't really think anything of it because we had been in a different country and eating different food," Tess told the Bendigo Advertiser.

"Another few weeks after that, I woke up in the middle of the night with really severe abdominal pain and had my partner take me to the emergency room."

In the more than seven years since the holiday, Tess has trialled more than 20 medications for nausea and been in and out of hospital.

She only got a conclusive answer to her illness in November 2022.

Now based in Ocean Grove, Tess and her family learnt the cause of her discomfort was gnathostomiasis, an infection typically caused by eating under-cooked or raw infected freshwater fish, birds or reptiles.

Gnathostomiasis is caused by several species of parasitic worms and is most commonly diagnosed in south-east Asia.

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It is particularly prevalent in Thailand.

Now Tess' days consist of three to four lots of medication, and a night-time routine of cleaning her feeding tube and setting up her feeds for the evening.

The tube was installed in 2018 after doctors realised her digestive tract was partially paralysed.

"I get 80 per cent of my nutrition from the feeding tube, and then there's things that I'm still able to eat as well," Tess said.

"I say to a lot of people that managing my health is kind of a full-time job on its own."

Tess is in constant contact with medical professionals, who help manage her condition.

"I spend a lot of time making phone calls and emailing my different doctors and chasing up different prescriptions or going to the chemist," she said.

"It's just a lot of time in my day."

Over the years since the trip to Thailand, Tess received several diagnoses that fit her symptoms, but doctors could not tell her what was behind those diagnoses themselves.

She might now have an answer but that has not solved her health battle.

Gnathostomiasis can present differently for everyone who is diagnosed with it.

"The infectious diseases doctor that is managing this for me basically said every single patient he's seen with this is different," Tess said.

"I have finished treatment now for the parasite which is good because it means that it can't do any further damage, but they also can't undo the damage.

"It's nerve damage and there's no way for doctors to repair nerves yet so, for now, this is permanent."

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Due to being unwell, she had to put her studies on hold.

Tess was three-quarters of the way through her nursing degree when she first got sick and she had to complete the rest of her degree part-time.

It took an extra 12 months to complete her dream course.

"Then I got six months into working as a nurse before I got too unwell to continue," Tess said.

"It's kind of stolen that from me.

"I've worked really hard for four years to get my degree and then, you know, after six months to have that taken away for me was pretty hard."

The 28-year-old could not work for three years as a result of her ill-health, but she said she eventually got to the point where she was "sick of waiting around to get better when the reality was it probably wasn't going to (improve)".

Tess now works helping others as a part-time disability carer.

She said her workplace had been "amazingly" supportive.

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Tess said her main motivation for sharing her story was to warn others and hopefully prevent anyone else from going through something similar.

"We want people to be aware that this parasite is a thing because Thailand is such a popular travel destination for a lot of Australians," she said.

"If they're unwell when they get back and they're being dismissed, just keep pushing for answers because we don't want anyone to go through seven years like I did not knowing what was wrong with them."

Tess said she now had a supportive medical team behind her but she did have negative previous experiences of doctors labelling her as an eating disorder patient or professionals who told her they "thought she was making it up".

"But luckily for the majority of it I've had a really supportive medical team," she said.

"My family's also been so supportive through the whole thing, and especially my parents, as well as my partner."

Tess has now connected with two people who have been on a similar rollercoaster with gnathostomiasis.

She said it had been nice to talk to those who have had the same sort of journey, even though the parasite had affected them differently.

With Tess only the 68th person in Australia to be diagnosed with the parasite, she said it was nice to feel less alone.

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