I got hookworm on our honeymoon in Barbados - in one of my feet! Symptoms started with an itchy foot. Upon closer inspection the “rash” was all squiggly lines. As I told my wife - this rash looks like a bunch of worm-trails. Still thinking it was just a rash, but not getting any better, I went to the doc.
Luckily he had been a medic in Vietnam.
“Wow - that’s hookworm. I haven’t seen that since Vietnam! Barbados you say? That makes sense - poor sanitation and then a dog poops on the beach and you come walking by... Hey - do you mind if I show the rest of the docs and staff your foot? They’ve never seen hookworm before, and I doubt they ever will again. This is so cool!” (About 8 people from his small place stopped by to look!)
He gave me medication to apply to my foot twice a day. After a week it was better but not gone, so he phoned in a refill. I went to the pharmacy and got the bottle, and looked at the instructions and it said “Take 1 tablespoon twice a day.” I told the lady that must be wrong, as I wasn’t drinking it, but putting it on my feet. She got all snippy at me and told me “maybe that’s why it wasn’t working so now you need to drink it”.
I got home, opened it up and looked at it in the tablespoon - the same stuff I had been putting on my foot!! No way. I called the doc the next day to make sure I was suppose to drink it. “Yes - it is the same medicine you drink if the hookworm is in your intestine - but why would you think to drink it?”
I went to the pharmacy and asked to talk to the pharmacist. He sheepishly told me “Well it had said apply 2x - but I had never heard of that so I changed it to the normal does of drinking a tablespoon.
I was pretty irate, asked him if he was always changing doctors’ prescriptions, and changed pharmacies.
The hookworm did leave though.
Having worked for several years in the pharmacy of a large state run hospital I can appreciate your story more than most.