Finally Gaining Weight

Tonight I got some good news on the bathroom scale — 158 lbs, up from 145 lbs just a few weeks ago. My appetite is pretty good, and I seem to be digesting my food a lot better. So far I’ve done a total of 9 fecal transplants and that may be where I stop for now, as my donor is going to be unavailable for a while. I had hoped to do 10 treatments, but this may be good enough.

It all started with a course of Levaquin last August — suddenly I had hard, dry stools. Even after a lot of FT, months later, I seem to have hit a wall in terms of the volume of my stool. I’m regular now, which is a nice change of pace, but my stools are smaller and harder than I had hoped. This is generally indicative of a low bacteria count. Bacteria help to hold water in stool, which makes them easier to pass.

My goal now is to create the healthiest ecology in my gut possible, with cultured vegetables (sauerkraut, kimchi) and fermented beverages like kefir. I make my own, 32 oz at a time, in a mason jar atop my gas range. It stays a cozy 79 degrees there, most of the day, and I get great results with grains I purchased online.

There’s some debate about the effect of kefir on stool, with most saying the longer ferments cause constipation, while the shorter ones cause looser stools. A friend of mine noted the loose stools may be caused by an abundance of lactose in the shorter ferments. If so, this is not necessarily a good thing for those of us with carbohydrate intolerance. I’d rather ferment it a bit longer, consume less sugar, and get more beneficial bacteria in my brew.

So what else could bulk up my stool and increase the water content? Betaine HCL has been suggested as a more natural way to decrease transit time and maintain moisture. Same goes for soluble forms of fiber, like apple pectin. I cannot handle the sugar in apples, but I can take pectin capsules, and have been adding two per meal lately. Apple pectin can feed bacteria both good and bad, so it’s important to not take it in cases of dysbiosis. Once the flora present is a decent balance adding some fuel should be a step in the right direction. Especially since pectin holds water in stools and reduces friction against the gut lining.

I’m also back on a routine of taking 4K to 6K mg of vitamin C daily. Sometimes it’s buffered, other times I take it straight with food, to reduce the chance of stomach and bladder irritation. Magnesium is another helper, either the glycinate form or the oxide (less absorbed), if i want more of a laxative effect.

Fats also seem to be a universal “mover”, so i don’t shy away from saturated fats in animal protein, and also add liberal amounts of olive oil to the vegetables I steam. If cooking at higher heat, I use grapeseed oil. An added benefit here is higher calories, since I’m still trying to bulk up a bit. Slow and steady wins the race.

Fecal Transplant, Round 2

For quite a few years now I’ve battled with fatigue, insomnia, POTS (blood pressure spikes), racing heart, and anxiety/depression when my gut flora is particularly out of balance. Last January things for me started to get worse in this regard, especially weight loss, pain in my left descending colon, and extreme fatigue, so much so that I didn’t recognize the symptoms anymore as “my usual”. By early April, I was concerned I might be developing colon cancer, and had somehow mistaken the slow, insidious symptoms for gut dysbiosis. I was frightened enough, and sick enough, to start making out my will.

Well, thankfully, it turns out I was wrong. Biopsy results from a colonscopy I had a few days ago came back and the preliminary results show no signs of malignancy. I do have inflammation in my colon consistent with colitis, but I’m not bleeding. Perhaps this is due to the anti-inflamatory capabilities of my Necator Americanus.

Getting the “all clear” was wonderful, but it has not made my health issues any better. I’ve been waking up in a sweat, feeling hot around my abdomen and lower back. It’s like a fever, localized to my gut. My nose is also stuffy, my ears are ringing, my mood is off, and I am quite tired. Too tired, in fact, to get out of bed much of the day.

Since I had some lead time while I waited for the colonoscopy, this gave me the opportunity to call my fecal transplant donor, who I worked with last October, and ask if we could do a round 2. He could tell right away from looking at me how sick I was, and said “yes”. So we got started two days ago, on Wednesday the 18th of April.

Immediately following the treatment, which I self-administered with an enema kit at home, I felt better. In mere minutes I was able to breathe freely, an hour later my mind was brighter, and I was laughing and smiling in a healthy, spontaneous way. Four hours later my entire body was feeling more relaxed, the stuffiness in my middle ears was receding, my balance was better. By the evening I was playing my guitar again, able to smell the distinct odor of wood and glue through the sound hole, and playing with a nuance I hadn’t felt in a few years.

Fecal transplant, for those of us with extreme gut dysbiosis brought on by overuse of antibiotics, is nothing short of revolutionary. My testosterone and leutinizing hormone levels have tested low for a few years now, and after one FT treatment I’ve no doubt my T is higher. Let’s put it this way — knowing what I do about the connection between flora and labido, every middle aged man who goes to his doctor for erectile dysfunction should probably be given fecal transplant as a first line of treatment. Seriously.

My donor left town for a few days and will be back late this weekend. In the time that has elapsed since, I’ve been attempting to use stool stored in the refrigerator to keep my healing going, but the old poop isn’t as good as the fresh stuff. I am relapsing some, with fatigue, stuffy nose, and tinnitus. I am hoping we can continue on for another 7 to 10 days, using fresh specimens, so I can regain my progress and solidify these benefits once and for all.

Eating: the new frontier

I am still enjoying delicious Vivonex (heavy sarcasm) for most of my nutrition, but tried adding a few veggies tonight: purple cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli, steamed in a pot together.

Added a whiff of olive oil and some sea salt.

Aced it. No reactions!

This is pretty major progress for me. Last October any one of those foods would have had me feeling toxic, especially the olive oil and broccoli, due to the salicylates.

So based on what I’ve read about salicylate intolerance, my phase II liver detox is functioning a bit better now, and my gut is in pretty good shape, too. More regular elimination probably takes a bit of the burden off the liver.

Good job, hookworms.

Day 25, signals from old friends…

Spring has come early, bringing with it high winds that fill the air with seasonal allergens. My body doesn’t like this time of year, but today I was on a roller coaster where my stuffy nose would suddenly clear up for no apparent reason. Hello, hookworm. I came in from a walk and lay in bed a while, taking note of how my body was reacting, and felt my parasympathetic nervous system activating, too. For those who are sympathetic-dominant like me, which is basically a tendency toward “fight or flight”, this flip-side (the relaxation circuit firing) can feel wonderful.

My sinus infection is finally healing now, and I’ve been inhaling a 30ppm solution of colloidal silver to treat a mild lung infection (triggered by the sinusitis). As a result, I’m now waking with signs of higher testosterone in the AM, and feeling increased mental clarity and steadiness. I have had low free testosterone and low LH (luteinizing hormone) on my last few blood tests, and this appears to be resolving, which is a relief. Low grade infections can often cause this, and the body doesn’t waste any time bouncing back as this type of physical stress is eliminated.

In terms of the hormonal balancing, I don’t want to ascribe all my improvements to one thing, be that the hookworm or the CS. It really seems to be a combination of each.

On the not so pleasant side of the ledger, I still have some tinnitus in my right ear, which may be a transient immune response triggered by the hookworm, or it could also just be left over middle ear dysfunction from my flu — sinus/ear related. I am also experiencing some insomnia, and epigastric pain for the first time since reinoculating with these 75 hookworm. This is simply a diffused ache in my upper and mid-abdomen — the same thing happened last May, if I recall, as the hookworm were developing.

All good signs, as far as I’m concerned.  Any indication my worms are ‘moving in’ puts me at ease. Here’s to accruing some benefits soon!

3 weeks in…

So it’s now been 21 days since I inoculated with 75 hookworm. I’ve had an upper respiratory flu that morphed into a sinus and middle ear infection. The goal was to avoid antibiotics (I cannot tolerate them), especially because they have contributed to so many of my health issues. Another course of them now could be very damaging and my primary care doctor realizes this. It took weeks, and quite a few home remedies, such as colloidal silver and xylitol neti pot rinses, a few hot showers a day, hot peppermint tea (I can now tolerate salicylates again, much to my amazement!), hot packs on the sinuses and ears, plenty of bed rest and lots of fluids, plus vitamin C. A month or so later, I’m finally starting to turn the corner.

Ironically, the most annoying remnant of this illness is the acne just inside my ear canal, brought on by a high carb elemental diet, the only food I can tolerate currently. “Vivonex”, as it’s called, keeps me going, but the side effects for me seem to be an increase in SIBO related co-infections like acne and rosacea. If I add some veggies throughout the day I get formed stools and less translocating bacteria, probably because the tight junctions in my small intestines are less likely to be breached, simply because my bowel transport is more efficient with the added fiber.

As far as the hookworm are concerned, I’d like to think I’ve got a bunch in me now, but so far the signs have been minimal. It’s impossible to separate the side effects from the flu, although I do think some of my loose stools are worm-related. Time will tell. As far as the timeline of events goes, and accruing benefits, I’m sort of in a middle zone where I may have few indications of the worms truly “moving in” until they start laying eggs, around 7 or 8 weeks at the earliest.

Fingers crossed they are alive and well, and that they can stick around this time!

Helminthic Therapy Support

If anyone would like to learn more about the science of helminthic therapy, share feedback on personal observations about HT, and discuss how their own conditions are responding, etc., please join us on facebook: Helminthic Therapy Support

It’s a closed group, which means no one in your network will be able to see your posts. Just click the “ask to join group” button.

Hope to see you there!

Day 5, and feeling benefits already

Some of the changes I’m experiencing now may be due to a “bounce”, which is a short term high a small percentage of those who do helminthic therapy experience. My first inoculation came with a 5 or 6 day euphoria, where for much of it I felt like i was 19 again. This time around I’ve been sick with a flu virus, feeling fatigued, and having sinus issues, so it’s been difficult to discern what’s “worm flu” and “real flu”.

This morning I woke up feeling hormonally more activated than I’ve been in months, perhaps even a year. For men it’s pretty easy to pick up these clues. No blood test required. My free testosterone has been low for many months, and my luteinizing hormone (LH) is also low. This indicates not a problem with the testes, which in my case are fine, but instead it’s a pituitary malfunction. Basically the brain isn’t able to signal the testes to produce T, so the free T levels remain low. My theory as to why this is happening relates to gut/brain inflammation and SIBO. To further complicate matters, low T can cause gut inflammation, which compounds the entire problem. But this morning I seem to have witnessed the start of a virtuous circle.

My energy levels are still low, so I took a nap around 2pm and as I laid there I took an inventory of my body — true relaxation hasn’t felt possible for quite a few weeks. Today I not only felt calm in my mind, but my muscles were looser, and I could feel that comfortable ‘shudder’ of my parasympathetic nervous system activating. It’s a wave of energy I’ve always felt through my body in association with a peaceful state: the opposite of fight or flight.

Sleep came on quickly, and I began dreaming. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant one, but I marveled at this all the same — I haven’t had a dream I remembered in nearly a year. I tend to dream when my gut is healthy, or at least I have dreams that are vivid enough to remember at these times. There was also something obvious about it — I was clearly trying to process events that had been building in my subconscious.

Furthermore, I’m also starting to crave real food again, instead of having no appetite and shoveling down my powdered elemental diet. This is the essence of healing!

Reinoculating with 75 Hookworm

I’m going to make this fairly brief, and hope to keep a more regular schedule with updates. Right now SIBO appears to be what’s affecting me most. My GI dr. hasn’t confirmed the diagnosis with a breath test yet, but many of my symptoms can be attributed to Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth. It’s not the most pleasant prognosis, but I do think hookworm can be a key part of healing the gut lining and the food intolerance that goes with it.

Here’s my current situation: about 6 weeks ago I was looking with my microscope and found 1 hookworm egg. This is not uncommon to only find one ovum per slide. But in my case I was very diligent and never found another one for a month after. I also had lost my worm benefits. So I’ve since done a 75 hookworm top off dose. It’s an interesting ride, because I’m also fighting a viral flu I got about 3 weeks ago. It’s hard to know which symptoms are virus and which are worm, but I think I can sift through it all and get a decent picture.

Insomnia — hookworm. Low grade fever — virus. Stuffy nose — virus. Tinnitus — hookworm. I’m getting tossed around on the ocean with my old friends. But we’ll make it. Stay tuned for more exciting developments, such as — being able to smell and taste, and eat real food again instead of Vivonex.

Hookworm Only — Starting Over.

It’s been ages since I updated this blog. Basically, I was doing very well on the first round of helminthic therapy, then wounded my finger tip when I was cooking dinner one night. A one week course of Levaquin antibiotics (early August, 2011) sterilized my gut, and what grew back was a horrible mix of bacteria. This triggered a flare of ulcerative colitis. I probably already had SIBO, too, from years of antibiotics from childhood to young adult years, but the constipation from this last round of antibiotic “therapy” made it all much worse. I then decided to add a 1500 whipworm top off dose, to stop the bleeding in my colon, but this just made my bowels more sluggish and I started to feel allergic to just about everything.

Eventually, enough was indeed enough. Due to a growing intolerance to foods, I had to kill off my 2000 whipworm and 55 hookworm combination with a three day course of Mebendazole (late October, 2011) and start over. On November 22nd I reinoculated with 50 Necator Americanus hookworm and decided to avoid the whipworm this time, since they appeared to contribute to an increased allergic response and most likely compounded the constipation from antibiotics. I feel I can now control my ulcerative colitis with probiotic implants and as long as hookworm reduce my allergies, this will also help my IBD improve.

So far, so good. I’m really feeling better this time around. Tomorrow (Tuesday) will be 6 weeks since I inoculated with 50 Necator Americanus hookworm. Last time, when I did the 55 hookworm/500 whipworm combination, by week 7 my asthma disappeared, so that’s a potential benchmark. If anything, I feel like I’m having earlier symptom relief on round two, and am reacting less allergically in general.

My nose started clearing around Thanksgiving, due to the “bounce”, which is an early symptom relief some of us get from hookworm, then this upper respiratory relief became a longer term benefit about a week or so ago. I hardly ever react to things like house dust anymore, and if I do it’s a more typical reaction like a sneeze, something I never could manage when my immune system was a deer in the headlights.

In October I was experiencing incredible food intolerance — reacting to nearly every protein I tried to eat — with a stuffy nose, tinnitus, and throat tightening sensation. The last week or so I’ve noticed my appetite increasing, and seeing that as a signal, I’ve since been testing and enjoying normal portions of pork and lamb, plus smaller amounts of beef. I’ll try things like chicken and fish at a later date when it’s more obvious the hookworm are providing benefits. Vegetable fats and proteins, like avocado and coconut, have also been fairly problematic in the past, so I’ll wait a while to test those, too.

Should anyone ever wonder if hookworm can help with salicylate sensitivity, in my case I think it’s doing exactly that. In early October I reacted to an over the counter product with salicylates (acne cream and a skin wash) when I used it on my face, and since then foods higher in salicylates would trigger a similar reaction — nasal congestion, tinnitus, increased heart rate and anxiety, asthma and throat tightening. It was no fun at all! Last night I tried eating a boiled carrot, since they are high in salicylates, and barely reacted. This morning I’m sipping a cup of organic coffee (also pretty high on the scale) and enjoying it. None of this would have been possible a month ago!

One of the best benefits now is relief from anxiety and muscular tension. I’m waking up feeling rested, with a very relaxed back and legs, and am drowsy enough to take naps, which creates a virtuous cycle.

Another thing I’m noticing — my face is clearing up. When my gut flora is out of balance, I often get acne to each side of my nose.

By the way, I have a new GI doctor who knows Joel Weinstock at Tufts University, is a major proponent of helminthic therapy, and (as I understand it) has sat on panel discussions with Weinstock. This doctor of mine also does fecal transplants for quite a few of their patients and has told me FT can be really helpful in the right applications, including my own condition. Right now the course of treatment we’re following is to keep things simple and allow the hookworm to get established.

Regarding acne relief, my GI says hookworm appear to literally change the human biome for the better, influencing which of the good bacteria survive and which of the more pathogenic ones don’t, and how large or small each population is allowed to grow. New (and old) research suggests a strong link between SIBO, acne and neuropsychological issues. Note the Stokes and Pillsbury study here, done 70 years ago, and leading edge research is just now catching on to their same hypothesis today.

The possibility of SIBO for me is very real, but I haven’t been tested to confirm it. Diagnosis can involve drinking sugar water to create gases that are then measured in the upper GI tract, but too much carbohydrate can cause flare ups of ulcerative colitis, and I don’t want to take the risk. The best approach in my opinion was to act as if I have SIBO and treat it with diet and probiotics, not antibiotics (which is a more conventional approach). For now, this has meant adding even more soft-cooked vegetables to an already high fiber diet. I’m literally sweeping the bacteria out of my small bowel and into the colon with a “broom” of large plates of veggies, mixed with modest amounts of animal protein. Too much fiber can create problems of its own, like undigested material that continues to feed bacteria, but this mechanical approach to addressing SIBO is short term and focused. As soon as possible I’ll want to eat a lower residue diet.

Meanwhile, I’m feeling well enough to go back into the world and work again, which is great, but in the interest of stabilizing as soon as possible, and cementing my progress, I would like to get up to a full dose of hookworm at the 3 month mark. I’m anticipating doing another 50 hookworm 6 weeks from now, or perhaps even 70, to get up to a 120 hookworm population. Given how minimal the side effects have been for me, I do think I can now handle 70 at once, especially with the 50 in me already, which should ease the immune response.

I’ve also ordered a microscope so I can keep track of my hookworm egg count. I don’t plan on being too precise about this. I don’t care how many eggs per gram of stool they are laying. I just want to make sure they are alive and well, so the plan is to check for ova every few months, and base most of my population maintenance on inoculation timing and overall symptom relief. If things are going well, my instinct is to just let things be and enjoy the ride!

Healthier, Day by Day

I’m not healed yet, but I’m on the upswing. With cervical spinal stenosis, neck trauma, plus an ulcerative colitis flare up due to antibiotic use, I’ve felt awful since June, but am really pleased with recent progress. Three weeks ago I did a 1500-egg Trichuris Trichiura whipworm top-off dose. It’s a larger number than most experts would recommend (I would have taken 1000 if it were possible to split the contents of the vial), but everyone reacts individually to helminthic therapy, and I have had only mild side effects in the past.

This time around, vague abdominal discomfort and mild diarrhea were the worst of it. I only took 5 to 10 mg of hydrocortisone for the first 5 days, as a precaution, which is basically a physiological dose, about half what my body would produce in a day. After that, I took Zyrtec at night, on and off for about a week, and only when necessary. The goal here is to be drug-free! I’ve also supplemented with 3 mg of melatonin, which has helped me sleep.

Since I’ve got stenosis and degenerative changes to my neck, which has probably affected my autonomic nerve, it’s hard to know if the insomnia is related to whipworm or caused by purely biomechanical, neurological issues. My hunch is whipworm have increased my eosinophils a bit and caused a temporary nervous tension (different from anxiety, it’s more physical) during the day, resulting in sleep disturbances at night. Note the following document here. However, keep in mind the insomnia started, and was at its worst, when my neck was injured back in June.

Here’s the good news: starting two days ago, my dysautonomia seems to have improved. My mood is better, I didn’take any Klonopin yesterday (medication prescribed for transient hypertension after the spinal injury), and I woke up feeling more rested. What caused the change? I’m saturating with VSL#3 probiotics, am eating a very low carb, sugar and grain-free diet, having twice-weekly chiropractic adjustments, using cervical traction devices to undo kyphois, and… getting regular exercise. Yes, exercise! My orthostatic intolerance has improved dramatically, to the point where I can now stand for an hour or more, and ride an upright exercise bike for 40 mins at a time. It was merely two months ago I was bed-bound, hardly able to walk or stand, and unable to ride the bike for even 5 or 10 minutes, so the progress is nothing short of incredible.

Two days ago I was having another blood pressure spike, an ongoing, daily issue for me related to high catecholamine levels. I may have hyperadrenergic POTS , but require further testing for diagnosis. Anyway, these attacks usually last for a few hours, but this episode eased up after only 30 minutes. Then suddenly I felt a familiar, deep sense of calm, much like my initial HT “bounce” back in early May, 2011, for a blissful 15 minutes. Is this the “worm magic” returning? Relaxation this deep is unique to my helminthic therapy, it’s ground-breaking and wonderful, and one reason I have come to believe in the “old friends” and hygiene hypotheses.

Thinking back, I’ve probably had low-level POTS for years, and at the time I thought it was just allergies. Cervical stenosis, likely to be congenital in my case, and neck trauma from computer use, may have contributed. But there’s also a potential mast cell component to POTS. By addressing the autoimmune aspects with helminthic therapy, I hope to conquer the allergic/immunity side, while addressing the degenerative, outward changes with neck traction, stretching, and gentle chiropractic adjustments.

All I care about is getting better, and without resorting to pharmaceuticals like Klonopin, when I can use a holistic approach instead. Positive trends gather their own momentum: laughter, love, community, happiness and connectedness — it’s all obviously part of health. My goal is to heal my body enough that I don’t even need to think about it anymore, and I can focus instead on enjoying life. Simple enough!