Death can occur through heart failure, respiratory complications, toxaemia or kidney failure. Some work has been done on the effects of trichinella infections on the behaviour of infected mice and has correlated the muscle phase of the infection with the host behaviour. Mice, with low grade infections change their activity patterns and become less active and submissive to other uninfected mice. This could be reversed if mice were given anti-inflammatory drugs. More recently studies of trichinella infections in wild populations of deer mice have also shown behaviourial modifications likely to make them more susceptible to predation.
Diagnosis usually requires a biopsy of muscle or examination of the suspected contaminated food.
There is no reliable treatment which will kill the worms, and treatment relies mainly on relieving the symptoms which arise primarily from the host inflammatory response. Therefore the patient is usually given analgesics and corticosteroids to reduce inflammation and ease the pain. The drug thiabendazole, although effective in animal models produces limited and variable results when administered to infected individuals.