So I’ve got 55 hookworms now, Necator Americanus to be exact, and 500 Trichuris Trichiura whipworms. Together, they brought about a growing and intense well being, starting a day or so after I was inoculated. I could breathe through my nose, fully, for the first time in many years. I could smell the chill in the morning spring air as I made my way outside, amidst a torrent of tree-fluff allergens that would have had me gagging with asthma, and running for HEPA-filtered air, just days earlier.
Shortly thereafter, the skin on this 40-something’s face was becoming soft and smooth, not rough and inflamed, as it has been for so long. What a time machine. I ran my fingers through my hair, which even felt a bit softer, too, and noticed the seborrheic dermatitis was easing. The scaly patches that had dogged me since my late teens were giving way to a normal scalp, the redness around my mouth and nose was becoming clear and… normal. Never before has “normal” been such a wonderful word.
I tried wheat, and sugar, even beer, and tolerated all of it. Merely days ago this forbidden menu might have sent me to the ER with a flare of ulcerative colitis. Yes, it can be dangerous to throw caution to the wind, and make such drastic changes, so I soon backed off the accelerator, and stuck with my low carb diet. But it was an incredible triumph to have a bread pudding… and live to type about it.
This “bounce” lasted for five glorious days. Then, as quickly as it came, it went. Such euphoria is a normal reaction to helminthic therapy, as I’ve come to understand, for a small and lucky subset. Some who do “HT” never bounce at all, so in this sense I felt doubly fortunate: first, to be successfully hosting them, and second, to have had such a strong initial response as they entered my bloodstream.
Inoculation day was April 25, 2011. I took two hookworm doses over two days — 35, and then 20 more. About 15 minutes after application, a “ground itch” developed at their entry site on my arm, which was quite mild. I also drank a tiny vial of 500 Trichuris Trichiura human whipworm ova on day one, which were suspended in saline solution. Apart from the concept, their entrance was utterly uneventful. *Gulp* Bon appetit.
