Last week, I received a call from a mother in California who had recently learned that her 19-year-old daughter had been diagnosed with Blastocystis. This mother's call renewed my interest in uncovering the prevalence in California of affliction by these potentially pathogenic protozoa. I am once again determined to document what my daughter has experienced in hopes that sharing our story will resonate with others, who in turn, are compelled to share a story of their own.
Initially, when my daughter was first diagnosed, I was obsessed with eradicating the Blastocystis from within her. She took a variety of medications, including Septra and then Alinia which made her hemorrhage and resulted in her first hospital stay in November of 2007. She was discharged with a prescription of Flagyl which was renewed, only for her symptoms to return.
A year later, she was treated for MAP with a combination of Rifampin and Clarithromyc. Everything worked for a while. We haven't found Blastocystis in her stools since November 2007, but then again, it is difficult to find, and quite frankly we haven't checked lately. Ignorance has been bliss.
We have also tried building up her system with probiotics, N - Acetyl Cysteine, and Glutathione. She avoided casein found in dairy products. This also worked for a while. We took her to a homeopathic doctor who used to be an ENT. He confirmed that she had rhinitis and a high IgG to Aspergillus Fumigatus. Homeopaths fight like with like. He had her take mold under her tongue and histamine (not antihistamine), along with vitamin K to clot the blood, vitamin D since she was low, and liposomal glutathione. This also worked, until we received test results showing Proteus Mirabilis in her stools and treated her with Cipro for a possible UTI.
Over the weekend, I began reading a book entitled
Death and Dentistry by Martin H. Fischer. I'm only a fourth of the way through it. What I've learned thus far is worth sharing. Basically, the book says that "the conditions surrounding the life of a parasite-trivial matters like air and water or type of food substance available-had everything to do with what might happen to the parasitized host". The book explains how William B. Wherry, "by reduction of oxygen tension to proper level . . .made two specimens of Leptothix grow that had never before been cultivated, and an assorted lot of animal parasites".
Think about it. Laboratories have different preparation, fixative agents, and storage procedures for each laboratory sample depending on what they are trying to grow. Patients are instructed to fast or not to fast, proving even the food in your stomach makes a difference. The qualities of a host's environment may explain why some people with Blastocystis have symptoms and others do not.
Our daughter still has lots of gas and bouts of constipation. She has not gained weight. She gets nauseated and has headaches. All of which, I believe are a result of a leaky gut. She bleeds rectally. What started out as blood in her stools, graduated to rectal bleeding over the course of her treatments.
For the past six months, we have been trying a different approach. Rather than eradicating Blastocystis, we've been trying to create an internal environment within my daughter's gut that makes it difficult for Blastocystis to survive and multiply. We are trying to keep her system alkaline by following Sherry Brescia's
Great Taste No Pain food combining plan.
She eats anti-inflammatory foods. She drinks green ice tea. She takes a tablespoon of Aloe Vera juice with meals. She eats a lot of peanut butter and whole wheat. Our daughter eats organic, hormone-free, antibiotic-free poultry but no red meats (they produce an acidic environment and her urine was acidic 5.0 PH when she first got sick). She eats organic, pesticide free vegetables and fruits. (If the produce is peeled or cooked, I don't always buy organic due to the cost and lack of availability.) Fruit seems to make her symptoms worse (If this is a yeast, sugars feed it, colitis sufferers often are found to be frutose intolerance.). Bananas don't seem to be a problem. She eats very little dairy, just hard cheeses and an occasional mint-chocolate-chip cup of ice-cream from Baskin Robbins. I think the ice-cream actually helps her go the bathroom. She eats a lot of parmasan cheese. She used to have low zinc levels.
Last June, our daughter had a stool test done by Doctor's Data. This test revealed she had no growth of Bacteroidis fragilis and no growth of Bifidobacterium spp. I believe this may be a result of all the medications she had taken to eradicate the Blastocystis. Our approach currently includes trying to boost the beneficial bacteria in our daughter's gut flora. She takes SuperShield Probiotics. Because SuperShield is so strong and our daughter is ten and weighs only 70 lbs, she only takes one pill every few days.
Our daughter is very physically active. We think this may increase her oxygen level which Blastocystis may not appreciate. We find when she sits around, her symptoms get worse.
Our daughter has low Ferritin levels, possibly due to all of the bleeding. Iron feeds all organisms. I believe the low levels are beneficial, since they starve the Blastocystis or any other underlying infectious microorganism of iron. Please do your research and talk with your doctor before supplementing with iron!
In addition to altering her internal environment, I believe she may have a strep or staph infection, such as was discovered in her first urine sample, only to be dismissed as too little of a colonization to be of clinical significance. Our daughter's school has had several reportable incidences of strep. Her school, along with her brothers' high school, also reported incidences of MRSA in the fall of 2007 when she fell ill.
The author of
Death and Dentistry contends that a person's mouth is a point of entry for infectious disease. It discusses EC Rosenow's observation that the "relation between infected tonsils or gums and gastric ulcer may be due, not to the swallowing of bacteria but to the entrance into the blood steam of streptococci of the proper kind to produce a local infection in the wall of the stomach." An infection that travels through the blood can relocate anywhere in the body. It can produce toxins or other byproducts that the body struggles to eliminate, compromising the health of the host, or just creating a better habitat in which Blastocystis can survive.
Thus, I believe, the perfect storm in which Blastocystis thrive consists of the chemical qualities within the targeted host (my daughter's urine was 5.0 PH), the presence of bacterium or their byproducts in the blood stream that compromises a host (no one has yet to culture my daughter's blood), allowing Blastocystis the opportunity to burrow into intestinal linings and cause disease. I believe that toxins in our modern, "developed" country, such as polluted air and water and genetically modified foods also aid in modifying our chemical make-up, compromising a host's ability to put up a good fight.
To summarize: My thoughts now are the effectiveness of Blastocystis to wreak havoc on a person's system is reliant on that person's internal environment. The perfect storm comes in when there's another pathogen, such as strep, staph, or an environmental toxin, including polluted water, polluted air, etc. that weakens and/or penetrates a body's protective linings, allowing parasites to burrow past our natural barriers and stake claim.
Please reply to this post or call me at 408-386-5761 if you have any questions, wish to discuss personally, or would like to contribute further to the information shared here.
