incubation methods

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We’re on our own in the US with worms

February 8, 2010 in incubation methods, worms and the law by admin | 19 comments

Looks like Jasper of AIT can’t ship hookworms or whipworms to the US because of legal reasons.  Wormtherapy is still offering hookworms, but you have to go to San Diego then Tijuana to get them.  I’d like to collect an aggregate of information on hookworm incubation methods here, so we can learn from one another’s mistakes and triumphs.  What I’m finding is most people need to dose way more often than once every 3-5 years.  I’m only dosing moderately (10 hookworms at a time) and I’ve had good effects for about 4 months, then things decline.  I’ve also heard personally from others that about the one year mark, things start to go downhill.  I’m sure it depends on dose and disease, environmental factors.  Of course, I’m not in touch with the vast majority of people trying worms, but the more we can learn and understand about this and share this information, the better.

I will be trying to incubate again this week.  I will share my methods of success or not.  Meanwhile, here is another place where someone is experimenting with incubating hookworms.  Let’s help one another, shall we?

Update:  someone suggested two links for incubating instructions.  The first:

http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/178_02_200103/lan10157_fm.html#CACJFHGC Read the rest of this entry »

incubation techniques for hookworm larvae

February 28, 2009 in egg count, hookworm lifecycle, incubation methods by I | 1 comment

I’m researching incubation methods, and hopefully in a few weeks I will embark on my first McMaster egg count. There seem to be 3 choices for incubating the hookworm larvae; the Baermann, Harada-Mori, and the AP method (agar plate.) Here’s a nice visual and thorough list of requirements for the first two methods:

http://books.google.com/books?id=8AWz0cS6e9kC&pg=PA115&lpg=PA115&dq#PPA115,M1

This article goes into great detail on the advantages of each method:

http://www.ajtmh.org/cgi/content/full/77/6/1087

Incubation temperature is important, and 30C (86 degrees farenheit) is optimal:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3569472

I’ll provide an equipment list and write about the process once I’ve ordered the supplies, and tried it out. Oh why didn’t I take a science class in college? An art major in oil painting is not helping me out here…perhaps I’ll start a larval triptych!

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