Giardia is a microscopic parasite that causes the diarrheal illness known as giardiasis. Giardia (also known as Giardia intestinalis, Giardia lamblia, or Giardia duodenalis) is found on surfaces or in soil, food, or water that has been contaminated with feces (poop) from infected humans or animals.Giardia is protected by an outer shell that allows it to survive outside the body for long periods of time and makes it tolerant to chlorine disinfection. While the parasite can be spread in different ways, water (drinking water and recreational water) is the most common method of transmission.
Image: Left: G. intestinalis trophozoites in Kohn stain. Center: G. intestinalis cyst stained with trichrome. Right: G. intestinalis in in vitro culture, from a quality control slide. Credit: DPDx
end quote from:
http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/giardia/index.html
It is incredibly common in places like India, most of Asia, Central and South America, Africa etc.
So, if you have even been any of these places you have a 50% to 70% likelihood that you have some of these critters in your intestines, especially if you were there and ate anything locally for over 2 to 3 weeks. But, you could be exposed in just one cup of water while there one day from the wrong source.
What I found out recently is that often (50% of the time) there are no symptoms at all. (At least with syptoms you know something is wrong. After 4 months time 4 out of 5 of my family in 1985 and 1986 had serious symptoms.
My symptoms were cramping to the point of sometimes bending over in pain and once in a while even passing out from the cramping pain in my intestines, eventually seeing spots before my eyes, losing more weight than I ever had before as an adult, and feeling weaker than usual. Luckily, I was extremely healthy then otherwise in my mid 30s. So, our foreign disease specialist said that most medicines we could take back here in the U.S. would destroy our livers. So, she recommended just waiting 6 months for it to sluff off. However, what I didn't know then and only found out recently is that they don't necessarily ever completely go away if you do this. However, I started to gain weight back to a normal level and feel fairly normal within 6 months of being back in the United States once again. (also, the one symptom that is unmistakable if you have symptoms is sort of like Montezuma's revenge) (you get uncontrollable diarrhea). However, this lasted only a few days to weeks. However, continued weight loss and spots before my eyes and feeling weaker than normal lasted about 6 months.
So, it is quite likely that the protozoa remained in some less harmful form in my intestines all these years and contributed to my Gluten Allergy by possibly damaging my intestines and the way they process sugars of all kinds. Because it appears protozoa like sugars especially like the kind of sugars wheat, barley and oats make as they are being digested.
So, the causation cycle (if you have traveled like me don't be surprised if you are suffering from some of the same things), the causation cycle might look something like this:
1. I went to Thailand, India and Nepal. At some point I got protozoa in my intestines during the 4 months I was over there with my family. Then I went to see a foreign disease specialist (medical Doctor) when I returned. Since she didn't want to cause damage to my liver she thought we should all(wife, 2 children and I) not take strong drugs that would harm our livers because she felt that since we were back in the U.S. that the giardia would sluff off.
However, instead what appears to have happened is that possibly the protozoa stayed in some form (less harmful) in my intestines, helped make worse a gluten allergy (that my daughter also has who also got parasites from Belize and Guatemala within the last 5 years. So, it is also possible that this aggravated her allergy to gluten so she is now gluten free too and is finally able to gain a little weight again.
In my case however, since none of this was known until recently, my protozoa increased my allergy to gluten by harming my intestines ability to process gluten, this caused my immune system to attack my thyroid glands, then this in turn caused me to become hypothyroid. This caused me to finally be diagnosed at age 58 with a hypothyroid condition and start to take armour thyroid because it makes me feel 20 years younger. Recently when I found out ( in the last month) that I also was allergic to gluten so I guess my blood tests might have also revealed that I was still dealing with parasites even though I haven't been having symptoms since 1986.
So, I feel I'm a very lucky man indeed to find all this out before I'm dead from all this before my time! Praise God and all the people who he has had help me so far and all the people that he will have help me in the future!
Note: It is important to note that giardia is present in much of the streams in the U.S. from feces of animals like deer, raccoon, boar, cattle, elk, moose, antelope, etc. So, if you are going to drink from any natural source be sure to use a filtration system or chemicals to treat whatever water you are going to drink or you can just boil it for 5 minutes like we did our water in Asia. In the late 1980s people were reporting even in southern Oregon that Giardia was being found sometimes in people's well water at times. I think by now it is showing up in water sources all over especially near large cattle ranches out of wells etc. It might be important to check well water sources for giardia because I have a feeling that much of the giardia in the U.S. is not going to give you symptoms. Likely, symptoms would be more rare than the varieties in places like Asia or Central or South America would affect Americans who would have different organisms living inside them to some degree than people in these other locations. So, for example, when people in one locality on Earth travel to another often they get sick from the different organisms there in the water and food. So, this traveling and getting sick new places is pretty common for everyone. But, hopefully, it is only the 1 to 4 day variety and not something as potentially long lasting and somewhat damaging as giardia.
Possible Conclusion:
It is likely that Gluten Allergies would be more prevalent in people who have traveled and who have come into contact (knowingly or unknowingly) with giardia.
Also: If you are worried about your water supply and not sure of it or if you cannot afford to have your water tested, or if you are drinking water out of the tap from almost any city in the U.S. sometimes the best bet is to either have a reverse osmosis device with a tippet installed or just boil any water you drink for 5 minutes. For example, if you boil water you want to drink even 1 hour before you want to drink it it has time to cool. So, make enough for a day when you make it and stay ahead of it so there is some cooling in a pitcher or jar of some kind.
Also, literally every city in the U.S. at some time of the year (usually 1 month to 3 months) has:
Cryptosporidiosis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptosporidiosis
Cryptosporidiosis,
also known as crypto, is a parasitic disease caused by
Cryptosporidium, a protozoan parasite in the phylum Apicomplexa. It
affects the ...
in the water supplies that come out of the tap. A reverse osmosis tippet should filter it out or boiling likely will kill it too even if fluoridation and clorination will not in most cases. So, ask your reverse osmosis representative about whether their filters get rid of giardia and Cryptosporidiosis in the water you use.
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