Health: Crawling with little threads: Threadworms are painful and shocking. A mother tells her story

ALMOST midnight and my five-year-old daughter appears on the stairs screaming with pain and scratching the area around her vagina. I grab the reading light and she shows me where it hurts.

A little piece of white thread less than half an inch long is moving quickly around inside the vagina. It is the first threadworm I have ever seen. She is stunned and I am shocked.

In fact, the pain and itching had been building up over three days and that very morning we had been to the doctor. As all the symptoms were at the front and the vagina was quite sore, the doctor suggested an all- purpose ointment with antifungal and antibiotic properties. Threadworm was not even mentioned.

It was a friend who alerted me to the possibility when I related the saga of my daughter's symptoms. She told me what to look for and suggested I do so that evening. She and another mother had already been through all this with their daughters and had received a similar shock; one child who had been treated for a thrush-type problem had several threadworms in her vagina.

The next day I rang the surgery, explained that my daughter had threadworms and was put through to the nurse. A prescription for a worm treatment was prepared immediately. The medicine was to be taken in two doses two weeks apart. No other precautions were suggested; treatment of symptoms only was the practice's policy.

Happily, there was enough medicine for more than one course of treatment - the following night it was the turn of my two-year- old. This time I knew exactly what to look for. Her slight itching seemed to be an imitation of her sister's. More medicine was used. Meanwhile, although I had no symptoms, I had convinced myself I was alive with the horrid things.

The reaction of my elder daughter's mixed private school was excellent. The head sent out a memo immediately warning parents that an anonymous case had been reported. This was followed by a more detailed note from the head of the infants' school together with a half-term holiday hygiene chart to be ticked each day by the child and returned after the holiday. It had several illustrated categories covering hair-brushing, teeth-cleaning, washing hands with soap and scrubbing fingernails.

So many children - including mine - think washing their hands means flicking them under the cold water tap (and even then not after every visit to the loo) before eating a meal. Most children would be snacking on the hour, every hour if left to their own devices - the idea of hand-washing before a snack is quite foreign to them. This lack of respect and knowledge of hygiene standards among young children is a significant contributory factor to the spread of worms. Threadworms go undetected in many children either because of lack of symptoms or because you do not know what to look for, or where. Even school memos are not forthcoming in this respect.

Raising the subject, tentatively, with one or two close friends revealed a fund of myth and misinformation: 'roller-towels carry germs'; 'warm-air blowers spread germs'; 'girls are more often infected than boys'; towels should not be shared among siblings'; 'the whole family must be treated at once'; 'all bedlinen and towels for the whole family must be changed immediately when treatment commences'.

I did try to do this but the abnormal load of damp laundry sent my airer crashing down from the ceiling, narrowly missing me.

Our well-thumbed medical dictionary - admittedly about 20 years old - was strangely diffident on the subject. It suggests, somewhat obscurely, that nighties be tied round the feet with string during the period of treatment to create a sleeping sack. It fails to say why. What in the world is going to fly out of the bag in the morning?