Parasites – Are They Ruining Your Health?

CATEGORIES: Healing & Herbs Nutrition

Are you excited to talk parasites?

I bet you are excited at the idea of tiny organism living inside you wreaking havoc ……no?

But as gross as you may find this topic, it could be life changing.

I have worked with a fair few clients in my one to one practice who have been at their wit’s end until we discover (either through testing but most often through my health assessment process) they have a parasite and everything makes sense. So today we are going to look at what a parasite is, what the symptoms are and what you can do about it.

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Parasites are as gross as they sound, they are little living creatures that come and live in and leech from your body.

They can affect your gut health, joint health, immunity, energy levels, basically everything. There are many different types some well know ones like Giardia or Blastocytis Hominis, but also many many others. You can get them from severe food poisoning, traveling, pets or animals, or even from just eating contaminated pork! (Damn those sausages…)

But they are not simply limited to people who go to ‘exotic’ places like Delhi, Marrakesh or Phuket, you can get them without ever leaving the UK too. Lucky us.

How do you know if you have a parasite?

Well, I think it’s much better to test than guess, so you can do stool tests with people like Dr Diagnostics or Genova Diagnostic labs to name a few. You basically poop in a tray for 3 days and send it to them, its is totally as gross as it sounds but from this, they can tell you exactly what parasite, bacteria or yeast overgrowth you have. It’s a VERY useful test to have done as it gives you a picture of the state of your whole gut and how healthy it is – I did it recently to discover my own parasite, yeast overgrowth, and SIBO infection. Go me.

But I know not everyone has the money to put into testing as it is pricey so there are other ways you can work it out…

Have you ever had really, really bad food poisoning or been really sick abroad and never been the same since? A client of mine had really bad yeast issues, energy issue and depression when she came to me. She had been to Africa many years ago and gotten very ill a few times whilst there and on her return had various treatments from various Doctors but nothing helped until we started a healing protocol for parasites, she emailed me to say it was like a cloud had lifted, it really impacted her depression and digestion.

Parasites can make a huge difference to your health, so if you have not been the same after your trip to Timbuktu or wherever and you have found yourself developing food intolerances and allergies and tons of other health issues then you could have a parasite.

Symptoms

Certain symptoms can also indicate if you have a parasite.

Are you having constant digestive issues?
Suffering from joint pain?
Itching in your body, especially at night?
Constipation?
Diarrhea or just looser stools than normal?
Having new food intolerances suddenly flare up?
IBS

please note that these symptoms can also be linked to many other infections and conditions, hence the need to work with doctors and professional on this

There are many many potential symptoms that accompany parasites and they can be quite random as they can impact so many systems in our bodies depending on what type it is. So if you have these ongoing symptoms and have tried other things to resolve them chances are you have a parasite.

So what now?

Don’t freak out. They will not come crawling out of your bum!

Work with someone to create a healing protocol for you, someone like me, a functional medicine practitioner naturopath or herbalist or holistic doctor, someone who knows what they are doing with parasites and can treat the whole life cycle. Often if you just take a bunch of drugs you can kill the parasite at one stage of its lifecycle but not the other 2 stages which can explain why 10 years on you are still suffering (Ahem my story to the tee. I got lots of drugs after being very sick during my time in India but think I am still dealing with that parasite today to a mild degree!) The parasite needs to be killed in every stage of its life cycle in order to rid it fully from your body.

To begin ridding your body of these parasites you can start by using some great herbs like clove, wormwood, and black walnut in addition to ensuring your body is detoxifying properly (I use one called GI Syngery made by Apex Energetics). By this, I mean pooping and sweating regularly, and by regularly I mean daily, ideally pooping x2 a day. Your body’s detoxifying processes and pathways need to be optimal before you do any parasite cleansing.

Eating a whole food predominately Paleo-ish diet which is refined sugar-free is also key as parasites live off…..you guessed it….sugar! So that is really important. (This website by Dr. Hulda Clark is a great resource for doing your own parasite cleanse)

I also recommend therapeutic probiotics like this one. And also with parasite issues, you’re often dealing with other issues too like yeast overgrowth, leaky gut, SIBO and other things like that, so these needs to be addressed too.

To fully remove the parasite you will need to creating a protocol for yourself or work with a practitioner who can create one for you, generally in a cycle with 9-14 days of a parasite cleanse and followed by a break with another 9-14days cleanse after. But I have also done 30-day cycles too depending on the person and how well they are detoxing/AKA pooing.

You can also get antibiotics to support this process too and a specific one to match specific strains so they could also be used in conjunction with the above but obviously, this would need to be discussed with your doctor. (Remember antibiotics DO have a place in our healing they are just not a cure all!)

The first step….

So I hope I haven’t totally freaked you out!

If you do feel you have a parasite just remember the first step is to not freak out and the second step is to deal with your sugar addiction. Sugar addiction will be feeding the parasite, draining your energy and contributing bacterial dysbiosis within your gut.

To deal with your sugar addiction click below to get my FREE Natural Sweetener eGuide with recipes and more information on how to ditch the sugar addiction and I promise you it is easier than you think.