The things we endure to live in paradise:

Flooding, drought, wildfires, hurricanes, sinkholes, Bufo toads, lovebugs, scam artists.

Now add to the mix a parasite that can burrow through your brain.

Angiostrongylus cantonensis, also known as rat lungworm, has been detected in rats and snails in five Florida counties, including Hillsborough, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Florida's Department of Infectious Disease and Pathology.

When ingested, the parasite can, in rare cases, cause a form of meningitis in humans. Some people who are infected don't experience symptoms. Others suffer headaches, neck stiffness, skin tingling, low fever, nausea and vomiting before those ailments clear up on their own.

In severe cases, you can die.

The worm is endemic to Hawaii, the researchers said, and likely caught a ride to the continental United States in the 1980s on its primary host, a rat, which itself hitchhiked on a ship.

Researchers also found the parasite in Leon, Alachua, Orange and St. Johns counties, more places than they expected. They expected to find the tropical parasite in South Florida where it had already announced itself, study co-author John Slapcinsky told the Florida Museum of Natural History, but not all over.

"The reality is that it is probably in more counties than we found it in, and it is also probably more prevalent in the southeastern U.S. than we think," lead author and assistant professor Heather Stockdale Walden told the museum. "The ability for this historically subtropical nematode to thrive in a more temperate climate is alarming."

The life cycle of the worms is cringe-inducing.

A rat will eat a snail infected with the worm larvae, which will then dig through the rat's intestine to enter its bloodstream, the study said. Once they reach the rat's brain, the larvae grow into immature worms, re-enter the bloodstream and lodge in the rat's pulmonary artery, where they mature and lay eggs. The eggs then hatch in the rat's lung tissue. Rats cough up the newly hatched larvae, swallow and excrete them. Snails then eat the feces and become infected themselves.

Then the cycle repeats.

Human transmission usually occurs from eating raw or undercooked snails or by eating unwashed produce, like lettuce, that have snails on it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Though, people can also become infected from eating raw or undercooked frogs or shrimp. When handling them, the CDC recommends wearing gloves and washing your hands.

Once inside a human, the larvae travel to the brain and spinal cord, mature into worms and meander toward the lungs, according to research published by the National Institutes of Health. Usually, though, the worms die before they get there. Diagnosis is three-pronged: symptoms, blood or spinal fluid tests and exposure history.

Rat lungworms can also affect animals and pets. A white-handed gibbon, a primate, died in 2003 at the Miami-Dade Zoological Park from exposure to the parasite, the study said.

To protect animals and livestock, Stockdale Walden said, watch for snails in living quarters and watering troughs.

Contact Josh Solomon at jsolomon@tampabay.com. Follow @josh_solomon15.