Are hidden infections causing health terrors in your life? Parasites are a vital topic because so many people have these critters hiding in their bodies, either stealing nutrition from the digestive tract or feeding on organs and tissues. The difference between "pest" and "pets" is not only the arrangement of the last two letters; it is whether you feed them or eradicate them.
Many of their life cycles can even last for decades. If you are infected and unaware of parasites, you can be spreading them unknowingly to family, friends, and coworkers which propagates their life cycles. Often entire families suffer from these infections, passing parasites back and forth between family members including pets! Usually, when one person in the family has a parasite, It will be passed through eggs to other family members. When treating parasites, they must be viewed as an infestation, which is not a pleasant thing to explain to families. In these situations, everyone in the family must be treated to stop the spread and the vicious cycle of infection in order to restore their overall health and wellbeing. If one is infected with parasites, how would you know?
There are many different types of stool tests and blood markers that can indicate the presence of parasites. You can even get scoped by having a camera routed through your intestines and have CT scans done. But unfortunately, many doctors use these tests, and if they find nothing, they rule out parasitic infestations. I have seen enough chronically ill patients that have been through these protocols, and these hidden stealth infestations remain. However, the doctor moves on to other tests and finds themselves trying to treat dysfunctions that disrupting the homeostasis or normalcy of their biochemistry and end up using band-aid medication because they can not find the root cause of these dysfunctions that disrupting the homeostasis or normalcy of their biochemistry. I have discovered many parasitic infections in patients who had gone through the testing gambit to get no positive results, and within days they started seeing parasites in their stools. This often leads to a massive paradigm shift in how they view their symptoms and correlated health issues.
Once I was reviewing gastrointestinal stool test results with a patient and while going over the section on parasitology, she shuddered every time I mentioned the word parasite. She was a prim and proper lady and thought she had parasites from being unclean, which disturbed her greatly. So, I explained that parasites are like terrorists hiding in her body, they wait until the opportune time to activate and attack, causing her health issues. It was in this conversation I coined the phrase "Terrorisites."
Parasites are a significant issue for many reasons. Even the best quality testing and imaging miss many of these infections. Through my testing methods and treatment options, I have helped patients kill off and expel parasites. We get many emails with pictures of their "trophies"; it is like big game hunting, and my patients like to send me proof of their success. Often, it is like hunting for bigfoot; parasites are so far removed from people's consciousness that until they have a definitive sighting or picture, parasites may not exist in their reality.
People often think parasites are mainly from third-world countries and poverty-stricken areas and are not prevalent in the United States. I have talked with patients from many third world and tropical countries, and they say that it is standard for everyone to get deworming meds 2-4x a year and they are surprised by the lack of treatment in the U.S.
I believe many people diagnosed with a plethora of diseases and syndromes, who are treated for the symptoms, and never find that the underlying issues and chronic sickness are traced back to parasitic infections.
Many of these symptoms you may experience and never attribute to parasites are:
- Allergies to the environment, foods, and many chemicals
- Skin bumps or rashes, wet or dry eczema
- Weight loss or increased appetite, or both
- Abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation, and vomiting
- Low energy from sleeping disturbances and anemia
- Aches and pains
- Weakness and generally feeling unwell
- Fever
In today's world, with people moving about the globe, and food brought in from all over the world, the once localized parasites have a vast new world of a host to inhabit now. Many parasites can kill humans; however, most parasites want to keep the host alive and in a weakened state to feed off them for years. This allows parasites to lay eggs, preserving the life cycle, and propagation of the species. There are many types of parasites; Nematodes (roundworms), Cestodes (tapeworms), and Trematodes (flatworms), which are among the most common parasitic worms that inhabit the human gut. Usually, helminths cannot multiply in the human body, but Protozoan parasites which are microscopic can multiply into millions inside the human body.
I recently read a good book called "This Is Your Brain on Parasites" by Kathleen McAuliffe. She does a fabulous job laying out how parasites' influence and manipulate their host behavior which in turn shapes our society. This book expanded my understanding of many of my concepts and notions of how my patient's symptoms and presentation were underlying parasites' infections. The field of Neuro-parasitology has only just begun; they are uncovering studies done from all over the world that have been looked over for decades and are compiling this information to allow us a greater understanding of how they influence your choices from food cravings, social interactions, and risky behavior. I had an instructor tell me all the "problem kids" in school had some parasite infection outside of Abuse. I cannot prove that, but I believe she was on to something. These agitated kids cannot remain calm. Their neurotransmitters are out of sync leading to concentration issues and depression. They react in rage or anger and often have no idea why they are doing the harmful things. They develop emotions of low self-worth and esteem, leading to inferiority complexes and chronic depression.
This manipulation can happen through many secondary and tertiary phases. There are many generalities when discussing parasites and do not represent every parasite and its interaction with your body. In the gut, parasites can have a drastic effect on your ability to digest, absorb, and assimilate food into your bodies so we can rebuild ourselves; they rob you of minerals slowing your energy and chemical processes. Your microbiome then becomes dysfunctional and leads to a weakened immune system. With the digestive tract lacking in digestibility, we have many food particles not digested; this can lead to biofilm buildup of putrefactive proteins and rancid fats, creating a protective layer for parasites to hide under in the gut. These indigestive materials rotting in our gut make an immune response to breaking down these elements, which can cause food sensitivities and allergies. When I run the food allergy and sensitivities test, we would change the diet. After three months, we see the previous food sensitivities drop, and the new diet of foods starts to become an issue. When removing the parasites, we see most of these allergies go away. Those who suffer from food allergies know this can be detrimental to your social life, and the ability to partake in events and trips without being free to go on a whim is unmanageable. It requires food prep and medicines packed in the hope of having fun. Parents who deal with this are extra vigilant and exhausted, trying to keep the offending foods or chemicals at bay.
Parasites can have many neurological effects, slowing cognition, the ability to process information and make wise choices, slowing reflexes and coordination, causing decreased athleticism, and even vulnerability to falling and causing injuries. I am not saying every poor athlete or older person has a parasite they might. It is usually a sharp decline from an ability or level of coordination that we previously had.
Parasites can lead to breathing dysfunction like exercise-induced asthma, where under lots of physical exercises, asthma symptoms can be experienced, but inhalers are not as effective as needed. The mast cells are activated by parasitical activity to help the immune system; however, we encounter other symptoms from the plethora of chemicals released. The most noticed are histamine Reactions that present like allergies, amongst many other chemicals. These histamine reactions can lead to many symptoms. An article in Science daily in 2017 stated, "While young people with parasite worms currently have four times higher risk for developing allergies and asthma than others, their parents are generally unaffected. Researchers were surprised when they found that intestinal worms, so-called Helminths from animals, actually have an influence on allergy- and asthma risk in humans."
One of the most common parasites I see in my office is hookworm infection. The book "People, Parasites, and Plowshares," written by Dickson Despommmier, shares some fascinating history on hookworms. John D Rockefeller was visiting the south and noticed that there was a lack of ambition and too much laziness. It was at the time in America when Parasitology was emerging in the late 19th century. A scientist by the name of Arthur Looss, while studying hookworms, noticed they would move to the surface of the culture dish and mass together, performing an act known as questing where they flicker back and forth like a flame looking for something to latch onto and infect. During this time, he accidentally came in contact with the dish and noticed an itching sensation where he had been infected. HE was curious as to whether this coincidental itching was because of the hookworm. Being a good scientist, he tested out his hypothesis and started testing his stools. In a few days, he noticed hookworm eggs in his stool. Unlike other parasites that need to be swallowed, this was mere skin contact. This little worm had been the cause of the Southern Laziness, causing iron-deficiency anemia. This led to a major overhaul of American sanitation infrastructure. They found out that hookworms would only move four feet, and the requirement for outhouses became a six-foot hole, and all children were required to wear shoes. This led to a sharp decline in hookworm infections south of the Mason Dixon Line. The hookworm causes Anemia by chewing off the ends of our microvilli, feeding on the blood, and leaving the opportunity for foreign materials to invade our body, leading to a form of dysbiosis (leaky gut). The Anemia causing a decrease in energy production also limits all our other systems; it is like having brownouts in our body.
As I alluded to earlier, the symptoms that we experience from parasites are often misdiagnosed, and their symptoms are being treated instead of the root cause. The direct approach is to deal with allergies or pain and inflammation and missing out on the fat the these are secondary tertiary or even further upstream from what we are seeing played out in the body. Mast cell activation in the presence of a gastrointestinal infection presents with many different symptoms such as sore throat, chronic sinusitis, food allergies and intolerances, fatigue and exhaustion, headaches, and many other swollen and painful lymph nodes.
I have had so many patients who have run the gambit of testing and are frustrated and confused, trying to get answers. I, as a doctor, have felt the same frustrations trying to find answers to my patient's suffering, only to come up empty with standard laboratory testing and advanced GI tests. These frustrations have led me to seek out other testing methods to get results for my patients.
Working as an internist for many years, I have incorporated many different laboratory tests in search of finding answers. I have learned to add Kinesiology testing and many other energy tests to my bag of tricks. I have since added to and continued to treat patients effectively and efficiently. I had a patient tell me recently that working with me caused them to have a paradigm shift because I expected results, and sooner than later, after she has seen other doctors for years and struggled to even get out of bed, I thought it was odd that more doctors aren't as adamant as getting results as I am.
Let me tell you about a challenging case I had this year.
I had 15-year-old young women come in to see me; her parents felt her health was 1/10; she has been battling fatigue and sicknesses for many years. She was diagnosed with Lyme Disease in 2016. And got progressively got worse; she had to be home-schooled to deal with flare-ups that came on without notice. She had to give up all sports and friends interaction, she could not be in public spaces, and eventually, she had given up her "safe place" at the horse stable. In 2019, they ended up in the emergency room six times and were finally sat down and told that they could not find the root cause of her issues. The emotional trauma from these visits was also starting to create more problems.
They had been to many doctors and clinics within a 100-mile radius, but her flare-ups continued, and things go much more severe:
- Non-Epileptic Seizures
- Paralysis
- Chronic Pain
- Fatigue
- Short term memory
- Cardiovascular issues
- Brain fog
- Nausea
- Dizziness
- Anxiety
- Poor digestive absorption
To make matters worse, every doctor had a different diagnosis:
- Lyme Disease
- Autoimmune Disease
- POTS
- PANDAS
- Conversion Disorder
- Leaky Gut
- Brain Breach
- Gluten Intolerance
Her days consisted of taking dozens of supplements and going from treatment to treatment:
- Office visits
- Blood tests
- Antibiotics
- IV vitamins
- Daily supplements
- CBD
- LDN
- Hyperbaric oxygen therapy
- Ozone IV therapy
- Red light therapy
None of them made a noticeable difference, and she finally got so sick she was bedridden.
They heard about me from other patients, we talked on Friday, and they drove in over the weekend. We started a month-long adventure dealing with many chronic infections and toxicities only to end up with the last major causative factor being parasites in the gut and brain, which was treated from home for the next three months. She told me at the three-month mark, she was up from 1/10 to 5/ 10 in overall health; she is feeling good, reconnecting with friends, and back at the horse stables. I was even amazed had how fast she bounced back and was training on her horse performing jumps. We will continue to see her for maintenance until she is fully recovered. Her parents stated that all the diagnoses above and her symptoms have all but gone away. This was a fantastic turnaround. This was a case in which treating the parasites needed to be done in a gentle manner with the neurological implications involved; we did not want to create too much die-off too soon and cause more issues, so this will be a slow and steady process.
When dealing with parasites in the gut, I have recommended utilizing enemas and colon hydrotherapy to flush out the parasites this allows us to win more battles. By weakening and paralyzing the parasites they cannot fight back, resist, or clamp down to your intestinal lining and get flushed out of the body. Allowing us to take large steps forward, the immune system can catch up and regain control of the situation in the gut.
I had another case where a patient showed up with a flair-up on her feet, and through testing, we found three different parasites involved; they were not quite familiar to my area of Kansas and mostly tropical. She had not been to any tropical areas recently, and the sudden presentation of these symptoms made me wonder if this had been a chronic low-level infection that flared up without a known cause. In this case, we had to use a much more robust approach than usual her feet had swollen up and were red and painful; she said that her toes would not touch the floor as she walked. It took a month or so to kill the parasites, and then we were left with an issue of the toxins left from the die-off; after another month, or so we seeing her feet return to normal.
Have you been struggling to find the root cause of your health issues? Have you been told that parasites are not present or an issue? You may want to look a little deeper and see if there is something that is being missed. Long-term parasitical infections have been presumed to lead to the development of many different diseases, from neurological disorders such as ALS to many forms of cancer. There are more studies being done learning how these infestations of Terrorsites can diminish your life and wellbeing.
If you are interested in learning more, please call for a complimentary consult to see how we can help you overcome these "health burdens."