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Rhianna Benson
An x-ray image has gone viral this week, showing what a parasite actually looks like once embedded into the soft tissue of the human body.
And let's just say, it's definitely not one for the weak-stomached.
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The image in question was first shared on social media by emergency room medic Sam Ghali, where he described it as one of the 'most insane' body scans he'd observed in his career.
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The gut-wrenching x-ray is of the lower-half of one patient's body, including their stomach, buttocks, and upper-thighs, all of which appear to be littered with thousands of small, unusually-shaped beings.
Writing online, Dr Ghali described the condition as 'cysticercosis', otherwise known as infestation caused by the 'pork tapeworm'.
He explained: "Essentially, these are larval cysts of taenia solium", eggs which enters the body when undercooked pork.
These cysts subsequently develop into adult tapeworms, which reside within an individual's gut for a period between 5 to 12 weeks.
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He explained, however, that cysticercosis doesn't happen to the original pork-eater, but another unfortunate individual.
"The life cycle begins with a human consuming raw or undercooked pig," the social media-using medic explained.
"And then that person becomes infected with the worms in their GI tract and passes the eggs along to another unfortunate human who then consumes them."
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The process of cysticercosis then materialises when the individual that ate the undercooked pork - and is therefore, infected - doesn't wash their hands property after releasing fecal matter.
When these eggs are ingested via fecal-oral transmission to another person, cysticercosis develops for them.
These cysts have the ability to travel anywhere in the body, and in case of the patient in the x-ray, it appears as though they've infiltrated muscles around the hips and legs.
"What happens is they lodge here, and over time, they calcify," Dr Ghali went on. "And that gives them this classic appearance known as rice grain calcification."
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Despite appearances, he added that such an infestation poses no real physical danger in this realm of the body, revealing that the patient only attended the emergency room after suffering a broken bone.
There are some ways in which cysticercosis can be deadly, however - especially if the cysts travel to the brain, where it can cause symptoms such as confusion, headaches, seizures, and even death.
Statistics recorded by the World Health Organisation allege that around 2.8 million people are infected with this time of parasite per year, with the most common cases emerging across Asia, South America and Eastern Europe.
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"Do your best to keep clean, always wash your hands, and never, ever eat raw or undercooked pork," Ghali recommended.