Husband’s?  0

Worms haven’t matured yet?  Hopefully next week we’ll stop feeling disillusioned, sick and weary.

New worms haven’t matured yet, damn it.

My rectum is the worst it has ever been, or the worst that I can remember.  I’ve got a huge painful external hemmeroid that’s killing me.  Inside is bloody and sore too.  I’ve done 3 rectal foam enemas so far; no miracles yet.

At least the fever and night sweats are over.  I don’t feel like I have the flu anymore, now I just feel like I have bad colonic/anal Crohn’s.  Mucus is a constant.  I can’t go Christmas shopping without being wet, going to the bathroom multiple times, cleaning up, only to have more mucus come out an hour later.  Can I just say I am so sick of this symptom?

I’m tired of waiting for worms to work.  These last 8 months have sucked.  What happened to the 15 hookworms I got in June?  How many survived?  What the hell are they doing to help?

My magnesium deficiency is pretty bad.  Hands and lips are going slightly numb.  I’m twitching all over.  I can’t do anything without getting an immediate cramp.

I’m starting to feel hopeless; 2 years of magnesium deficiency with nothing that helps long term.  It gets better only to worsen again.  I’ve tried every oral supplement there is, shots, IV’s, nothing.  Will I just have to suffer with this forever?  What about the state of my heart?  How much are the worms contributing?

My anus I’m afraid of losing.  Or having it scar to oblivion.  3 years on hookworms and I’m as bad as ever.  So much for the early excitement of finding “the cure”.

Hopefully, these new worms will mature in the next few weeks and I’ll start feeling hopeful again.  I don’t know what combination of worms and species and dosage will work for me, if it’s too late for me to heal anyway, if I should just give up and try a new biologic, or what.

I guess I’ll wait a few more weeks and see what happens.  Merry Christmas and all that.  I’m still eating chocolate.  Gotta find happiness somewhere, even if it ultimately contributes to misery.

C’mon hookworms.  I need some relief.  I’ve suffered long enough.

I’ll do another one next week.  I want to see when these new worms mature.

Night sweats every night, fever from 99 – 100.4 every day.  No more solid bowel movements, more mucus and blood.

Magnesium deficiency is worse; more twitches, constant cramping in my toes and calves, and some anxiety.  Sigh.

C’mon worms, work!  I’m running out of patience, and my suffering quota is filled.

* your experience with TSO, hookworms, whipworms, and other alternative remedies

* incubation techniques, egg counting  (I can teach you how to do a McMaster egg count, show how to recognize hookworm eggs, the equipment needed, etc.)

* the legalities of this therapy.  With the recent FDA classification for hookworms as a drug, what legal rights to we have as patients?  Are we allowed to share? Are we allowed to host worms even if they are illegal to obtain?  What about children?  Do we have the right to prevent disease, or only use worms to treat disease after it’s occurred?

*alternative ways of getting the worms safely other than the commercial companies

* how to bring more positive attention to this therapy

* how to encourage our doctors to research, further the research, use us as case studies, etc.

* how to affect the FDA ruling and help the paradigm shift along

* creating an open-source, public database on our side effects, blood tests, reactions, proof of efficacy or lack thereof, etc. to keep track of our data and have a place that interested parties can see what other people are going through, their lab data, how long progress lasts, egg counts, etc.

* and just to meet with other people trying this or who would like to try it, to help normalize the whole concept of hosting worms

Please contact me by clicking on the contact link, where you can email me a personal message stating your interest.  Let me know when you are available, whether weekend or weekday is best, evening, etc.

We are all in this together, and giving each other support for our various trials and ailments would be wonderful! I think it’s also time for a robust DIY community to form. I realize most of you will not be able to come to California, just hoping there are enough people in the Bay Area interested in something like this.  Perhaps we could put up notes or do a virtual stream during the meeting, if other people would be interested in joining,  but unable to in person.

Thanks!

My CRP has risen slightly, and my symptoms are a little worse, but it’s not from a declining worm burden. Now I’ve hit my PMS week and the anxiety is creeping back, despite the transdermal magnesium, and I have had trouble falling asleep the last few nights. I pick up more magnesium chloride today; I’ve been using the same foot soak for the last week since I ran out, don’t know if that makes a difference nor not. I’ve also had more twitching, a little dizziness, and pin pricks, so perhaps my minerals have dropped.

I think it’s time for returning to a better diet, and adding probiotics. I was going to add more hookworms, but now I’m wondering if that would help or hinder. I know I’ve only had 20 worms total, so there is room to add. Not sure if that makes things better, or where the point is that you have enough and you’re not going to do any better with more?

My GI said that doctors are getting increasingly skeptical about helminth therapy – not because of the science, but the practical application of them. UCSF was never in favor of AIT, and now with the latest two Nottingham trials that were not very positive, it looks like the excitement is falling. Especially as no one can get worms except for TSO now.

I just want to have consistent wellness and someone else figure this out for me. I wish I knew precisely what was going on, whether I do indeed have severe mineral defincies that are causing many of my problems, or if there is some neuropathway that the worms have altered that are causing anxiety, muscle twitching, and the rest.

Bone broth soups, transdermal magnesium, and hope. Vitamins, minerals, and probiotics. Wait for my period… What else can I do?

Egg count is supposed to peak around 6 months, then decline.  My last innocualation was the end of September, so 6 months ago.  I wonder if we should reinfect twice a year, or if it’s based on the amount of worms you get and keep?  Does egg count correlate with symptoms?

At least they’re still alive, so I have something to incubate.  I’m off to the garden store to get some vermiculite.  Then I’ll get my petri dish ready, and try to incubate again….

Anxiety has crept back the last 2 days, but I think it’s hormonal, since I should be getting my period any day now.  I’m also incredibly weepy.  Muscle fascilations and heart palpations have increased, so will try to up my magnesium supplements, and it’s time for a good calcium supplement, and just generally better nutrition.  I hope it’s just deficincies and when corrected, I’m in a good place.

I don’t know how long it will take for my psyche to realize that I have found something that works and should continue to work.  But years of fear have taken their toll, and it’s a challenge to reprogram a 21 year fear.  And I’m really not taking my supplements regularly, so it probably will take some time to correct years of defincies, alas.

But at least the worms are alive, and working!

So, adding worms added to the population, if you analyze the population by egg count.  It also seems to be helping with symptoms.  I don’t know how many other people are measuring their egg count, but now we have proof.

Had a little less anxiety last night; benedryl worked again to get me to sleep, and I got a good 8 hours.  I still feel like a nervous wreck, though.  Tried EMT (emotional freedom technique) but got nothing out of it.  Will have to try again.

At least the worms are still alive, though what they’re doing to help me right now I can’t say.  I did just get fitted for a bra, and I am a full cup size bigger than ever before, so weight-wise, they’ve improved that.  But emotionally, I am worse than I ever have been in my life, so…

Ah well.  I’m still alive, right?

(image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/prep4md/2772121447/)

The Nottingham dose-ranging trial has a list of quantitative egg counts per dose.  According to that chart, 10 and 25 larvae resulted in an average of 100-300 epg.  50 had a higher egg output, as high as 650 epg.  This chart states that 50 worms results in an average of 1600 epg.  The World Health Organization defines moderate-intensity infections as those with 2,000–3,999 eggs per gram of feces, and heavy-intensity infections as those with 4,000 or more eggs per gram.

This book says one can estimate worm burden roughly by 500 epg per worm, but that doesn’t seem to correspond to these other charts.  This study followed a male infected with only 5 hookworms for 18 years! His epg was between 1000-1500 epg.

This study estimates necator by 25 eggs per gram of feces per adult. (www.ajph.org/cgi/reprint/50/6_Pt_1/837.pdf)

I am counting 1050-1200 epg from my recent dose of 10.  So I suppose from all of this information, I could estimate that I have at least 5 females.  The above information seems very contradictory.

Any parisitologists reading this, could you clarify why there are so many variations in estimates of egg output and population density?