The Nightmare Of It All - Horsehair, Nematomorpha, Gordian Worm - Strongyloides Stercoralis or Thread Worm Part 1 Re-Write

SEE THE OTHER POSTS AS I KNOW IT WASN'T FROM PERU NOW. I DID A REWRITE AND NOW I KNOW IT IS ACTUALLY AN INSECT PARASITE CALLED HORSEHAIR, NEMATOMORPHA OR GORDIAN WORM. IT IS SIMILAR TO HOOK WORM AND THREAD WORM. SEE MY OTHER POSTS FOR SYMPTOMS AND TREATMENT ETC. TYPE IN "PARASITE" OR "HORSEHAIR" INTO SEARCH BOX TO FIND THE OTHER POSTS.

I wrote the original post - part 1 about a week ago. At that time, I figured I must have gotten this parasite in Peru as I couldn't think of anywhere else I could have acquired it. I have learned otherwise this past week. I have been sharing my story with my friends and have learned some things. 

About 8 months ago, I had a dream that I had three types of parasites and that one was a cat parasite and that one was affecting my head. When I went to this last Dr. I shared my dream with him. I have know and worked with him for years and actually purchased my home from him 20 years ago. 

I shared my dream with him and my history of having many of my dreams come true.

See my post Dream believer part 1 here. 

Dream Believer part 2 here. 

Dream believer part 3 here. 

He believed me and did a test on the most well known of feline parasites, Toxoplasmosis. That was the only cat parasite I had ever heard of as well. Since I have a neighbor with two cats that use my back garden and play area as their litter box,. (I don't think the owner owns a box as the cats are mostly outside cats) I figured I could have that as I walk barefoot and garden all the time outside. (See a post here and here about that.)

The test came back negative as you can see. What I didn't know is that Strongyloides can be acquired from cats, horses, sheep and cattle or from the soil they defecate in. It also can LIVE in the soil outside of the host for quite a length of time depending on what stages it goes through. Here is a clip about that from a "Parasite in Humans" site. "In the soil rhabditiform larvae either develop into filariform larvae or into adults. If a larva molts only twice, it becomes a filariform larva which is the infective stage and can invade humans. If the rhabditiform larva molts four times, it becomes an adult which can survive and reproduce in the wild. The free-living male and female mate and produce eggs. The offspring can either become infective filariform by molting twice or develop into adults by molting four times. The adult worms only live through one copulation cycle in the wild. But inside humans (only females there) adults can survive longer."

As I wrote this, I just had a huge epiphany, I got the mulch I use in the yard from the fair grounds (Click here for that.) and it has cows, sheep, pigs, and horses poop in it and I walk barefooted back there all the time!!! Not to mention we shoveled it into the yard yearly for years and could have inhaled it while moving it!!!! So interesting how many thoughts come when thinking how we could have gotten it! 

I ran into a friend I haven't spoken with for some time at the store the other day. I was telling her about the huge cost of this medication and mentioned bumps in my throat. She then showed me her throat and said the "Dr told me not to worry about it." When I saw her throat, mine looked healthy. She has it WAY worse than I do. I asked her if she was having any lung symptoms? She said, quote, "I run out of air when I sing!" I freaked out as that is exactly the words I told my Dr. before he ordered my PFT and Chest x-ray which showed problems. I mentioned I have been learning it can come from pets. She said, "We found worms in our cat poop yesterday!" I asked if she had ever dewormed her cat and she said she hadn't. She also has pigs, chickens, dogs etc.

I then mentioned it to several women at church and two came up after separately saying they had chest x-rays with spots and they run out of air when they sing as well!! I started thinking about when my lungs and sores in my throat started and it wasn't seven years ago. I think I probably had hook worm from Peru as many of the symptoms are the same but MOST of my symptoms started in the past two or three years. My neighbors cats have been a problem for many years. 

A few years back I discussed several options with my neighbor about how to keep them out of my yard and she suggested spraying bleach on everything or spreading orange peels in my yard. Ummmm neither of those options is realistic. I gave up trying. I thought about shooting it with a pellet gun but I don't want to hurt an animal so gave up trying to do anything as it was something I really can't control as she doesn't really take care of the cats, they just are there. I don't think there is even a collar on them and I often find them in my garage and they run out when the door opens as they hide in there and get trapped sometimes. 

So, I think I got them from my yard and her cats and I believe my dream was trying to let me know this. Every person I asked about their cats today, none had ever dewormed their cat! I have another neighbor who is moving this week and I went to help them pack and the husband is having horrible gut pain and they can't find anything with testing. I mentioned she may want to look into this parasite as I have been having problems for months with gall bladder and stomach problems and I am sure the cats have been in their garden area as well as he had the largest garden in the neighborhood for YEARS. 

My sisters young twins have been suffering from stomach pain, headaches and itchy bum. She collects stray cats and kittens all the time and they have had cats for years. My mom, she is on oxygen all the time now, she has almost died of sepsis and has major lung damage. The Dr's don't know why. My aunt died with lung damage they couldn't diagnose her with any cause either. Neither of them went to Peru and my sisters twins didn't go either. 

Sepsis can be caused by this parasite and my mom had cats for years and in the second post link above, you can read about her almost dying of sepsis. They never figured out what caused her sepsis.I KNOW my mom never dewormed her cats.

I am beginning to think the cat population in our area is causing an endemic of these parasites. I am going to do some tests on my mom and see if she has the white parasites show up with soaking in hydrogen peroxide and see if that is causing her lung problems. 

I will continue to add information on here as I find it out but the other thought I had is that perhaps working with the elderly giving pedicures or those that work with patients with COPD in the hospital can acquire it through the rashes or cleaning up their beds, clothing, stool, towels etc. I can't believe that in three days of sharing this information verbally, I have met several people who have the main symptoms I exhibited before I took the Vermox and made it go autoinfection crazy on me. The picture here is a friend I visited in the hospital and gave her a pedicure and visited her home monthly for years and she had cats AND had lung problems and was on oxygen for years. Frankly, I could have gotten it from her before she died, just visiting and helping her with housework and fixing her vacuum etc.

I told my girls for a few years now that I felt I had this health problem to help my family heal. Perhaps it isn't only my family that needed healing. People are not getting diagnosed and the Dr.'s are treating symptoms individually and not the actual problem causing it. 

I have been experimenting on a diagnostic test that can better diagnose this parasite as obviously traditional testing isn't working as 90 % of people with this illness test negative from one stool parasite test. 70% still test negative with 3 stool tests even when they have the illness. Seven stool tests over a months time bring that level to near 100% but the cost and waste of time waiting to start treatments brings discomfort and health damage to the patient and the added cost of seven test can drain resources.  

I have to add that my friend with the sores in her mouth said she has also been gaining weight she can't lose and she is fairly sure her youngest child has the parasite as well. 

This seems to be a situation that could quickly become endemic if not figured out. I am wondering how many have died from this without diagnosis as Dr.'s in the U.S. don't know much about parasites that aren't in the top five. This parasite is DIFFICULT to treat and diagnose and where it lives outside the body for some time can reinfect the person if the person ever does get "cured" which isn't easy according to documentation. 

I am still doing research and start taking another one of the new medications tomorrow. I felt strongly NOT to start them on the same day as the Dr. told me to do that. I prayed about it and the answer was that I would have a HUGE die off and in reading about that, it can cause lymph blockage and massive edema. Even just taking the one med for the first week, I have had edema, headaches and sluggish feelings. I can only imagine if I had taken both pills the first week, I may have ended up in the hospital with some blockages or worse as I read some can cause pulmonary embolism symptoms when dying off in the lungs. I pray that by following "promptings and feelings" I can figure out how to treat this in the best way possible. Since the Dr.'s are doing their best guess on treatment and having a hard time with diagnosis, I figure we all need some prayers and inspiration on this. 

 

Be careful if you find you have this. By just taking all the anti parasite pills at once or taking the standard treatment for this and taking one weeks dose, you could harm yourself causing worse problems. By taking the "standard" round worm parasite pill without many weeks of follow up about killed me as this type of parasite has three life stages and the pills won't kill this parasite in the second stage so you take the pill once and only kill part of them but then their eggs hatch and you can cause this hyper infection as I did. BE CAREFUL!!!!! If you have a massive infection, start with one pill for a week and then add the other in on the second week doing two weeks of each medication a week off and then repeat for up to six months depending on how severe your illness is.

I will include the main post from yesterday and continue with the symptoms and videos tomorrow but wanted to share that update and if you have a cat, USE WORM PILLS REGULARLY to save your family from several types of problems. My neighbor told me this week that her cousin has a SEVERELY retarded child from toxoplasmosis!!!! 

Back to the signs and symptoms from yesterdays post. . .

INFECTION SITE - Right after that, I developed an itchy rash on my left pointer finger that looked like a yeast or fungal rash with no specific points of origin so I thought it was non-specific just fungal possibly from their feet. *  I am adding that your feet have a high type of acid in them that attracts the strongyloides parasite so they seek you out when you are walking barefoot. You may not ever see a rash! You just start getting sick.

 

SKIN PIMPLE FIRST SIGN AFTER RASH - As soon as we arrived home, several of my family developed little pimple like dots on different spots of the body. They didn’t ever come to a head but if squeezed, a little “pop” would sometimes cause a little grain of sand sized white filling to come out. It wasn’t a hard center but was just the size of a sand grain. I attributed it to an ingrown hair as that was what it looked like to me as it was usually in a pore. I thought it weird that they were mostly on the right side of my body on my neck and shoulders at first. Eventually, they continued down onto my arms, legs, stomach etc. Most often they were on my upper arms on the outside. I researched this as I wasn’t the only experiencing it as my sister said she was having the same thing and my girls had them as well. At this point, I was thinking it must have been in the food rather than me getting it from the pedicures.

What I found, was it is called Keratosis Pilaris or “chicken skin” because it does look like chicken skin when the feathers are removed. I had these before and a dermatologist told me they were found on people who had “allergies.” It states online that this is a vitamin A deficiency. This problem was just on my arms before and now is everywhere and just got worse and worse as the years went on.

DIARRHEA and CONSTIPATION - The entire group suffered from diarrhea and stomach complaints on our trip. I went through bouts of both over the years not noticing more of one than the other.

STOMACH CRAMPS and ULCER PAIN - The stomach complaints for me got worse and worse. I would have such stomach cramps where I would just want to stay in bed curled up in a ball sometimes. The cramps weren’t consistent but would come and go. Sometimes I would get “ulcer” type pain as I had suffered from them as a teen where it would feel like something was eating or chewing my insides on one spot. This would get worse if I was eating something that would make my stomach acid more neutral like lemons or lime. Towards the end, I had pain not only in my stomach but all through my digestive tract. The spots would /will hurt sometimes if I pushed in that area but I have pain and cramps almost daily.

 

GAS, BLOATING, AND FLATULENCE – I had this on and off over the years but towards the end when I had a hyperinfection syndrome, (superinfection, autoinfection, disseminated disease) I woke daily with horrible burping for about 40 minutes and I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from having not changed my eating habits. I also had horrible gas, flatulence, farting or whatever you would like to call it. My girls were home one weekend and several commented on my gas saying that I rarely had gas so it was weird to hear me have it. I would wake almost daily to gas while stretching awake or getting out of bed. Not a normal thing for me. My stomach was almost hard with bloating. My belly was so engorged, swollen, distended etc that it was almost painful. My breasts would rest on my rounded belly feeling like I was being cut in half at the diaphragm and I would have pain in the top of my stomach valve where it felt like it was burning often and then I would try to stretch and see if it would stop which at the end, it never did. I felt distended 24/7.

HEART BURN AND CHEST PAIN -  For the last few years, I would be sitting at my computer at night writing my blog and in my journal. I would have HORRIBLE burning in my lung and heart area. It was extremely constricting and felt like someone had put a huge rubber band over my left lung and heart. I would shift in my chair, take deep breaths, hold my breath, nothing helped with this at first. This now crosses over to my lung problems so see that section for more.

DRY COUGH AND TICKLING THROAT – At the beginning, I had a horrible time with dry cough. It would wake me often at night and sometimes when I was places, I would have to leave due to not being able to control the cough. Over the past year, it got worse and worse and if I would bend over for a long time, I would generate the dry cough. It got to the point where it would wake me at night again and was / is happening often.

ENLARGED THYROID / DIFFICULTY SWALLOWING AND GAGGING AT NIGHT

Over the last six months, (hyperinfection syndrome) I started having difficulty swallowing. I would choke on my food frequently. Two of my girls commented that I had a “hump” at the back of my neck similar to a fatty lump or dowagers hump which made me think I was having adrenal problems as that often presents with a “hump.” Many times, I would wake up at night choking on stomach acid, saliva or nothing. This isn’t the same as sleep apnea as I have that as a symptom as well but it was actually choking on something / gagging on nothing. My thyroid is enlarged to the touch. I have every symptom of thyroid problems including several abnormal thyroid tests. I have gained 100 lbs and FREEZE at night lying in bed for hours trying to get warm. I, for years, have used hot bags to get to sleep putting them on my feet, neck and lower back. (Click here for a post about that.) Finally, I bought a heated mattress pad that I heat up for hours before getting into bed. I would lay awake until I got warm which sometimes was an hour even with the pad. I started rubbing rosemary oil on my thyroid over the last week at night and this is the first week in a few years, I haven’t needed the heater on to get to sleep. One of the pages I found said that the thyroid can be compromised as the parasites come up the lungs and out into the throat to be swallowed in their second phase of development. It is right near the thyroid and can cause calcification etc in the thyroid.

I believe that my main thyroid problems are due to parasites. I also stopped eating gluten for the past 18 months and my TPO went from 590ish down to 187. Normal results are 0 – 3.9. I believe that the diet has helped bring down my TPO and I do feel somewhat better not eating gluten as it made me feel like I was drugged when I would eat it. Leaky gut is also a symptom of this parasite as in the gut, it bores holes and this allows the undigested proteins to escape causing the body to attack the gluten. The thyroid proteins look like gluten proteins so the body attacks the thyroid as well. (That is a very basic description of what is happening and there is debate on this so all I can say is that I feel better NOT eating gluten.) I am now on thyroid medication and hope if we clear up the parasites, my thyroid can start to work normally again. 

Check out my many gluten free recipes by typing "gluten free" into the search box at the bottom of the home page.

To Be Continued....