I spent my whole thirties being ill and anxious and worried
A young Welsh woman returned from a backpacking trip to India in 2007 carrying an invisible burden she would not fully reckon with for years — the larvae of a pork tapeworm, quietly colonizing her brain. Lowri Denman's decade-long ordeal with neurocysticercosis, a disease few in the West have heard of, cost her independence, career, and the whole of her thirties. Her story is a reminder that the body holds its secrets on its own timeline, and that recovery, when it comes, can become its own form of purpose.
- Thirty-eight parasitic cysts lodged in Denman's brain triggered seizures, cognitive slippage, and eventually a full psychiatric collapse requiring three months in a neuropsychiatric ward.
- The infection arrived invisibly — not from undercooked meat, but from microscopic eggs swallowed unknowingly, a transmission route that makes neurocysticercosis both easy to miss and deeply unsettling.
- Aggressive anti-parasitic drugs, steroids, and chemotherapy agents kept her body in a state of prolonged siege, with side effects that compounded the original illness rather than simply resolving it.
- The parasites have now calcified — dormant but permanent — and after roughly a decade without a seizure, Denman has reclaimed enough stability to rebuild her life on her own terms.
- She and a friend are crowdfunding a 12-part podcast called '38 Parasites,' aiming to transform a lost decade into a resource for others navigating tropical diseases, neurology, and mental health.
Lowri Denman was 32 when she traveled to India in 2007 — careful, vegetarian, and sensible about the usual travel risks. She came home without incident, or so it seemed. Four years later, a tapeworm over a meter long emerged from her body. Her doctors told her the problem was solved. What they missed was what the tapeworm had already left behind.
By 2011, brutal headaches had begun, followed by words dissolving mid-sentence and a seizure that left her waking in an ambulance with no memory of what had happened. Brain scans revealed 38 parasitic cysts — the larvae of Taenia solium, the pork tapeworm — concentrated inside her skull. The diagnosis was neurocysticercosis, a rare tropical disease contracted not from eating pork but from swallowing invisible eggs through contaminated food or hands.
Treatment was grueling: anti-parasitic drugs, steroids, and eventually methotrexate, a chemotherapy agent. The physical toll was severe, but the loss of independence cut deeper. She could no longer drive, could not safely be alone, and by 2015 had quit her job and moved back in with family. The uncertainty of whether she would ever recover spiraled into anxiety, then paranoia, then psychosis. In 2016 she was admitted to a neuropsychiatric ward for three months.
Recovery came slowly, measured in small gains. The seizures eventually stopped. The cysts calcified — still visible on scans, but no longer active. Now in her forties and roughly a decade seizure-free, Denman is channeling her experience into a podcast called '38 Parasites,' co-produced with her friend Nicola Brown. They are raising £25,000 for a 12-part series combining her story with expert voices in tropical medicine, neurology, and mental health — determined that a disease most people have never heard of should not be allowed to keep ambushing lives in silence.
Lowri Denman was 32 when she boarded a plane to India with a friend in 2007, backpack in hand and two months of adventure ahead. She was careful—vegetarian diet, mindful of the usual traveler's stomach troubles, eager to soak up the culture without the typical souvenir of food-borne illness. She came home with photos and stories, exactly as planned. For four years, nothing seemed amiss.
Then in 2011, four years after returning to Cardiff, something emerged from her body that made her stop. A tapeworm over a meter long. It was shocking, certainly, but her doctors assured her the problem was solved. She believed them. She had no reason not to. What nobody caught in that moment was that the tapeworm had left something behind—something far more sinister, already burrowed deep into the folds of her brain.
Within months, the headaches started. Not ordinary headaches, but brutal ones that seemed to come from nowhere. Then her words began to slip away mid-sentence. She couldn't quite grasp them anymore. One day she woke up in an ambulance, confused and terrified, with no memory of the seizure that had just seized her body. "I was really starting to struggle getting some words out," she would later recall. "The next thing I came around and I was in an ambulance and I was like, how has that happened? Why?" Brain scans revealed the answer: 38 parasites lodged inside her skull. Not scattered throughout her body, but concentrated in the one place where they could do the most damage. The diagnosis came after months of specialist consultations and mounting panic—neurocysticercosis, a rare infection caused by the larvae of the pork tapeworm, Taenia solium. You don't need to eat undercooked pork to contract it. The real culprit is invisible eggs, swallowed from contaminated hands or food, that migrate into the brain and form cysts, triggering neurological chaos.
Treatment meant aggressive anti-parasitic medications—albendazole and praziquantel—designed to kill the parasites without causing the brain to swell as the cysts died. Steroids controlled inflammation but brought their own cascade of side effects. Her physical health deteriorated, but the loss of independence proved even more devastating. She couldn't drive anymore; seizures could strike without warning. Walking out the door felt dangerous. She was told not to do anything alone. By 2015, four years into treatment, the parasites remained stubbornly present. She quit her job and moved back in with her family. The forms for Personal Independence Payments—the government assistance she now needed—were too much for her to fill out alone. "For someone that's extremely independent and capable and lived on my own most of my life, I was like, what the hell is going on here?" she said.
The medication regimen became its own ordeal. Methotrexate, a chemotherapy drug, left her exhausted and terrified her hair would fall out. Steroids swung her between manic energy and crushing fatigue. The uncertainty—not knowing if she would ever recover, if this was permanent, if her brain would ever work the way it used to—spiraled into something darker. Anxiety metastasized into panic attacks, then paranoia, then psychosis. The line between reality and fear dissolved. "I was having panic attacks. I thought I was going to die, I think, and then that turned into paranoia, and then the psychosis came out. I wasn't stable at all, all these thoughts and crazy things were going on in my head," she remembered. In 2016, her condition deteriorated so severely that she was admitted to a neuropsychiatric ward for three months, where she received treatment for both the parasitic infection and the psychiatric collapse it had triggered.
Recovery was slow, incremental, measured in small victories. By early 2017, she left the hospital. Over the following years, her seizures came under control. Now, a decade later, she hasn't had a seizure in roughly ten years. The parasites have calcified inside her brain—still visible on scans, but no longer active. She's rebuilt a version of her life, reclaimed some independence, and moved into her forties determined not to let her thirties define her. She and her friend Nicola Brown are now producing a podcast called "38 Parasites," raising funds for a 12-part series that will tell her story and spotlight experts in tropical diseases, neurology, and mental health. "I spent my whole thirties being ill and anxious and worried, and now I've moved into my 40s, I want to do something positive with that negative thing—help other people, and not just feel like I've lost all of this time," she said. They're aiming to raise £25,000 to bring the series to life, hoping to reach others facing similar struggles and to ensure that neurocysticercosis—a disease most people have never heard of—becomes something people know about before it upends their world.
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I was really starting to struggle getting some words out. The next thing I came around and I was in an ambulance and I was like, how has that happened? Why?— Lowri Denman, describing her first seizure
I spent my whole thirties being ill and anxious and worried, and now I've moved into my 40s, I want to do something positive with that negative thing—help other people, and not just feel like I've lost all of this time.— Lowri Denman, on why she's creating the podcast
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
How does someone go from a routine backpacking trip to losing a decade of their life?
It's almost invisible at first. She came home fine, felt fine for years. The tapeworm was the warning sign nobody recognized. By the time the parasites in her brain started causing seizures, they'd already settled in and multiplied.
The psychiatric symptoms seem almost as damaging as the physical ones. Why did the parasites trigger psychosis?
The parasites were in her brain—literally causing inflammation and swelling in the tissue that governs mood, perception, reality itself. Add in the steroids and other medications, the fear of not knowing if she'd ever recover, and the loss of everything that made her feel like herself. The mind breaks under that weight.
She was told to be careful with food in India, and she was. How did she still get infected?
That's the cruel part. You can do everything right and still swallow invisible eggs from someone's contaminated hands, from a surface, from food prepared in an unsanitary kitchen. There's no way to see it coming.
What does it mean that the parasites have calcified but she's stable?
They're dead now, essentially. Turned to stone inside her brain. They're not going anywhere, and neither is the scar tissue they left behind. But they're not active anymore. She's learned to live with them there.
Why make a podcast about this? Why not just move on?
Because she spent her thirties terrified and isolated, and now she wants that suffering to mean something. She wants other people to know this disease exists, to recognize the symptoms, to get help faster than she did. She's turning her ordeal into a map for others.