Everyone Thinks They Have the Diarrhea Parasite

每个人都觉得自己感染了腹泻寄生虫

Could It Be cyclosporiasis or is it just IBS? That’s the question every social feed and group chat is agonizing over at the moment. 这到底是圆孢子虫病（cyclosporiasis）还是仅仅是肠易激综合征（IBS）？这是目前每个社交媒体信息流和群聊中都在纠结的问题。

Joye Pate was forced to ask the question earlier than most, when she woke up on a Monday in late June with stomach cramps. The 28-year-old had recently taken a trip to New York, and her first assumption was that she had eaten something that disagreed with her stomach. She went to the bathroom and noticed that her stools were loose. Joye Pate 比大多数人更早被迫面对这个问题。6 月下旬的一个周一，她醒来时感到胃部绞痛。这位 28 岁的年轻人最近去了一趟纽约，她最初的猜测是自己吃了什么不消化的东西。她去了趟洗手间，发现大便变稀了。

“An hour after that, I found myself back in the bathroom,” Pate tells WIRED. “And essentially, it just kept happening every hour or so.” “一小时后，我又发现自己回到了洗手间，”Pate 告诉《连线》（WIRED）杂志。“基本上，这种情况每小时左右就会发生一次。”

Monday was hourly diarrhea. Tuesday was more of the same. By Wednesday, Pate was frantically Googling, trying to figure out the cause. On Thursday—after days of consuming little other than broth and crackers—Pate finally discovered a potential explanation: cyclospora. 周一，她每小时都在腹泻。周二情况依旧。到了周三，Pate 开始疯狂地在谷歌上搜索，试图找出原因。周四，在连续几天几乎只喝肉汤和吃饼干后，Pate 终于发现了一个可能的解释：圆孢子虫（cyclospora）。

Nearly 7,000 people across the country may have been sickened with the parasitic infection that causes explosive diarrhea, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although experts estimate that number is almost certainly much higher. As of publishing, the case count in Michigan alone stood at 4,312. 根据美国疾病控制与预防中心（CDC）的数据，全国可能有近 7,000 人感染了这种会导致爆发性腹泻的寄生虫，尽管专家估计实际数字几乎肯定要高得多。截至本文发表时，仅密歇根州的病例数就已达到 4,312 例。

But if you’re scrolling through Instagram, you might think that everyone you know—in every corner of the country—is impacted: bad for the bowels, good for the algorithm. Even if the parasite isn’t actually everywhere, social media is making it feel that way, triggering anxieties up and down your feeds. 但如果你在刷 Instagram，你可能会觉得你认识的每个人——在全国的每一个角落——都受到了影响：这对肠道来说很糟糕，但对算法来说却很“友好”。即使这种寄生虫并没有真正无处不在，社交媒体也让它看起来像是这样，从而在你的信息流中引发了焦虑。

Pate never tested positive for cyclospora, but felt her symptoms—which lasted a full week—fit the bill. Her TikTok about the experience has been flooded with commenters who think they might have cyclosporiasis themselves. She wanted to share her experience because, back in late June, there was not much coverage of the outbreak. Pate 的圆孢子虫检测结果从未呈阳性，但她觉得她持续了一整周的症状与该病相符。她在 TikTok 上分享这段经历的视频下，涌入了大量评论，许多人认为自己可能也患上了圆孢子虫病。她之所以想分享自己的经历，是因为在 6 月下旬，关于这次疫情的报道还很少。

Now, Pate says, cyclospora is all over her social media. TikToks by people claiming to have had the infection, as well as videos from people terrified of getting sick, are racking up thousands of views. Suddenly, it seems, everyone wants to talk about their tummy troubles. Pate 说，现在圆孢子虫的话题充斥着她的社交媒体。声称自己感染了该病的人发布的 TikTok，以及那些害怕生病的人发布的视频，正在获得数以千计的浏览量。突然之间，似乎每个人都想谈论他们的肠胃问题。

“I feel like I have 99 percent of the symptoms, but I also have stomach issues all the time,” influencer Meagan Rose said in a TikTok with more than 40,000 views. “And I’m extremely stressed right now, because I’m like—at what point am I going to know?” “我觉得我有 99% 的症状，但我一直都有胃病，”网红 Meagan Rose 在一段浏览量超过 4 万次的 TikTok 视频中说道。“我现在压力非常大，因为我在想——我到底什么时候才能确诊？”

Food content creators, meanwhile, are pivoting to cooked vegetables. “Trying to avoid explosive diarrhea, so how do we feel about steak & crispy smashed potato for dinner?” said cookbook author Arash Hashemi of Shred Happens in an Instagram story on Wednesday. 与此同时，美食内容创作者们正转向熟食蔬菜。“为了避免爆发性腹泻，晚餐吃牛排和脆皮土豆泥大家觉得怎么样？”食谱作者 Arash Hashemi（Shred Happens 账号）在周三的一条 Instagram 快拍中说道。

“Avoiding raw produce? Stir-fry your lettuce,” wrote the New York Times Cooking Instagram account in a story linking to a recipe. “想避开生鲜农产品？把生菜炒着吃吧，”《纽约时报》烹饪频道的 Instagram 账号在一条链接到食谱的快拍中写道。

“I was so worried after I had a salad from my local bodega and my stomach was bothering me the rest of the afternoon at work, but I also have a history of IBS,” one woman, who asked to stay anonymous, tells WIRED about her experience with days of watery diarrhea. “There I was on the toilet scrolling through Instagram and seeing posts about the parasite.” “我在当地杂货店吃了沙拉后非常担心，那天下午在工作中胃一直不舒服，但我也有肠易激综合征病史，”一位要求匿名的女性告诉《连线》杂志，讲述了她连续几天水样腹泻的经历。“当时我坐在马桶上刷 Instagram，看到了关于这种寄生虫的帖子。”

Michigan health authorities have identified lettuce or salad greens as a potential cause for the outbreak, but no specific ingredient, grower, or supplier has yet been named. Past outbreaks of cyclosporiasis have been tied to leafy greens, herbs, and raspberries. 密歇根州卫生部门已确定生菜或沙拉菜叶是此次疫情的潜在原因，但尚未指明具体的成分、种植者或供应商。过去圆孢子虫病的爆发曾与绿叶蔬菜、香草和覆盆子有关。

One of the bottlenecks in tracking the outbreak is diagnosing it. Cyclospora isn’t as common as other foodborne pathogens such as E. Coli and salmonella, and routine stool tests do not typically screen for it. Plus, many people who get diarrhea never seek medical care unless their case is particularly severe. 追踪疫情的瓶颈之一是诊断。圆孢子虫不像大肠杆菌（E. Coli）和沙门氏菌（salmonella）等其他食源性病原体那样常见，常规粪便检查通常不会筛查它。此外，许多腹泻患者除非病情特别严重，否则从不寻求医疗护理。

Lauren, a 44-year-old mom who lives in New Jersey and asked to go by her first name, tells WIRED that she was hospitalized in early May with severe diarrhea before she had heard about cyclosporiasis. She woke up with nausea and threw up a few times before “having the other explosive problem” for several hours. (The CDC says the outbreak began in early May). 住在新泽西州的一位 44 岁母亲 Lauren（要求仅使用名字）告诉《连线》杂志，她在 5 月初因严重腹泻住院，当时她还没听说过圆孢子虫病。她醒来时感到恶心，呕吐了几次，然后“出现了另一个爆发性问题”，持续了几个小时。（CDC 表示疫情始于 5 月初）。

“I was literally lying on the floor,” she says. “我当时真的躺在地板上，”她说。

She remembers eating a bibb salad at a restaurant two days before her symptoms began. No one else in her family ate the same thing or got sick, so she thought her illness could be linked to the salad. Symptoms of a cyclospora infection typically appear about a week after exposure, but they can occur as soon as two days or as late as two weeks after the parasite is ingested. 她记得在症状出现前两天，曾在一家餐厅吃过一份波士顿生菜（bibb）沙拉。她家里没有其他人吃过同样的东西或生病，所以她认为自己的病可能与那份沙拉有关。圆孢子虫感染的症状通常在接触后约一周出现，但也可能在摄入寄生虫后两天内或两周后出现。

Her stool was “sheer liquid and bloody,” so she went to urgent care. Clinicians there took her blood pressure, which had dropped, and advised her to go to the hospital. She immediately went to the emergency room, where she got IV fluids and tests for E. Coli, salmonella, giardia, and other common foodborne and waterborne illnesses, but she wasn’t tested for cyclospora. 她的大便“全是液体且带血”，所以她去了急诊中心。那里的临床医生测量了她的血压，发现血压已经下降，并建议她去医院。她立即去了急诊室，在那里接受了静脉输液，并进行了大肠杆菌、沙门氏菌、贾第鞭毛虫和其他常见食源性和水源性疾病的检测，但没有进行圆孢子虫检测。

For those regularly running to the bathroom, calling your doctor and asking for a stool test is your best bet. Cyclospora is highly treatable with the antibiotics Bactrim and Septra, which are typically taken twice a day for seven to 10 days. Experts say that washing fruits and vegetables thoroughly and vigorously can lower the risk of infection. Vinegar and commercial disinfectants aren’t effective at killing the parasite. Even with best practices, it’s still possible to contract cyclosporiasis. 对于那些频繁跑厕所的人来说，打电话给医生并要求进行粪便检查是最好的办法。圆孢子虫病可以通过抗生素 Bactrim 和 Septra 进行有效治疗，通常每天服用两次，持续 7 到 10 天。专家表示，彻底且用力地清洗水果和蔬菜可以降低感染风险。醋和商业消毒剂对杀死这种寄生虫无效。即使采取了最佳预防措施，仍有可能感染圆孢子虫病。

“I have returned from my travels in the lands of diarrhea, and also the ER, to share this wisdom: Do not get the diarrhea parasite,” Colin Carlson, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, posted on Bluesky on Wednesday. He’s still waiting on test results to know for sure. “I have a lot of colorful things I could say but my main thing is that RFK Jr. I am challenging you to a cage match on the lawn of HHS,” he wrote on the social media platform. (About a quarter of the CDC’s staff has been cut since Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took office in February 2025.) “我刚从腹泻之地和急诊室的旅程中归来，分享这一智慧：千万别感染这种腹泻寄生虫，”耶鲁大学公共卫生学院的流行病学家 Colin Carlson 周三在 Bluesky 上发帖说。他仍在等待检测结果以确认。“我有很多生动的话想说，但我最想说的是，小罗伯特·肯尼迪（RFK Jr.），我向你在卫生与公众服务部（HHS）的草坪上发起笼斗挑战，”他在该社交平台上写道。（自 2025 年 2 月卫生与公众服务部部长小罗伯特·肯尼迪上任以来，CDC 约四分之一的员工已被裁减。）