A California man pulled a 5-foot, 6-inch tapeworm out of his body following a steady diet of salmon sushi, his doctor said.

After asking the man if he had traveled out of the country or drank well water in the past year, Dr. Kenny Banh, an emergency room physician at the University of California San Francisco in Fresno, discovered that the man ate raw salmon sushi "almost every day," which could be the way the parasite entered his body.

The patient, who was not identified, has since sworn off salmon sashimi forever.

Banh told the podcast This Won't Hurt a Bit that the young man had approached him during a shift complaining of bloody diarrhea and asking for treatment for worms in early August 2017. Banh said he was skeptical of the man's request because people often unnecessarily demand treatment for worms, but the man had wrapped the giant parasite around a toilet paper roll and carried with him to the hospital in a grocery bag.

The man first thought the worm was a piece of intestine hanging out of his rectum after he had diarrhea, Banh said, but after pulling the worm out of himself, he saw it start wriggling. The worm was as long as Banh is tall, the doctor said.