Saturday, February 28, 2009
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 [...]
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
There are very few studies on the effect of helminths on humans. As a patient trying this therapy, there are few immune markers we have on hand to check immune response. We have measures of inflammation, like CRP and SED rates, but only in the research setting can one measure IL-10, the T 1 and [...]
Just found the on-line protocol for the Crohn’s study at Nottingham University. For those of you with Crohn’s experimenting with hookworms, though most of the immune blood tests will be unavailable to us, it might be nice to follow some of the other protocol. The CRP and SED rate are taken at baseline, then at [...]
Light, long-lasting Necator infection in a volunteer. Beaver PC. School of Public Health, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70112. “A Necator infection produced by percutaneous exposure of a volunteer to three larvae was followed with periodic egg counts for 4 months beyond 18 years when passage of eggs in the feces ceased permanently. During the [...]
I was thinking about worm dose and efficacy. (Brace yourself; this is long and convoluted.) If one were to be dosed once with 10 larvae, then accounting for attrition, there would be perhaps 7 left in the gut. (And this number may be a high estimate.) Assuming a 50% gender split, there would be 3 [...]