Is There Something Eating At You?

You wake up feeling groggy, although you’ve had your normal six to nine hours of sleep, whatever works best for you, and you didn’t have that extra glass of wine last night. The past few nights, you’ve felt chilled, although the weather’s not been cold, or if it has, you’re using that new down quilt. Your appetite seems off too; you stand in front of the fridge deciding what to make for lunch, and nothing looks good. And at dinner, you’re eating smaller portions. So you’re wondering whether you’re coming down with a cold or stomach virus, but the severe symptoms never materialize.

Sometimes at night, or after your morning constitutional, you wonder whether you had too much salsa or fruit the day before, but the next day everything’s normal, so you forget about it until it happens again a couple days later. And if you’re one to evaluate the success of your bathroom creations, you may notice some of them seem more buoyant than usual. It’s more difficult to button your jeans, and you wonder whether it was those fries or salty corn chips you had the day before. But the bloating continues no matter how little salt you eat. If you’re young, you may wonder whether that time of the month is coming early; post-menopausal women might think their hormones are acting up big-time. Your lower belly may be talking more frequently, telling you that maybe you ate something it didn’t like.

You’ve also noticed a slight ache in your belly, to the right of your belly button. Other stomach pains may materialize as well, along with occasional headaches. Sometimes you wonder whether you have gallstones. You don’t have the energy you used to and wonder if you’ve been working or playing too hard. You just don’t feel like yourself but can’t figure out why.

Several friends in the U.S. and Baja have had at least some of these symptoms over the past year, and they’re stumped and frustrated. They’ve been several times to the doctor, but lab tests, colonoscopies, ultrasound tests and barium enemas were all normal.

I also suffered for several months last year with those symptoms. I was so uncomfortable last spring, I left my favorite place in the world, my lovely Baja home, to return to the U.S. to figure out what was wrong, since the local San Felipe doctor conducted tests and told me all was well.

In the U.S., my regular doctor directed me to take stool samples to the lab and ordered an ultrasound to see whether I had gallstones, since I was having pain in that area also. All the tests were normal, but my symptoms continued.

So I did some research on my own and determined I was probably suffering from giardiasis, which is caused not by a bacteria or virus, but by a small one-celled parasite. Doctors generally order a one-day stool sample, or maybe a more intensive 3-day test. However, the U.S. Center for Disease Control’s website (http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/giardia/) states, “Because Giardia cysts can be excreted intermittently, multiple stool collections increase test sensitivity.” Doctors, however, don’t have time to keep up on the most recent recommended testing, particularly for something like parasites.

I never figured out how I got it, but I read more about the symptoms and means of transmission. I learned how prevalent giardia is and how easy it is to become infected, despite a healthy lifestyle. About 8,000 giardia cells can fit on the head of a pin. They can exist for long periods outside the body, remaining on inanimate objects such as toys and bathroom fixtures and regaining entrance to a human body through the oral route. They’re resistant to stomach acid and adhere to the upper small intestine. And I was amazed to read they sometimes attach to the bile ducts of the liver, creating symptoms that mimick gall bladder disease! No wonder I felt as if I had gallstones but the tests were negative!

Giardia cells are not all killed with chlorination, so you can get infected from U.S. water supplies. If you're camping and using lake or river water and don't have a filter specifically approved for giardia removal, be sure to boil your water for at least 10 minutes to kill all the critters.

Outbreaks of giardiasis are doubling every five years and have infected at least eighteen million people in the US alone. Because of the number of ignored or misdiagnosed cases (giardiasis often being diagnosed as irritable bowel or chronic fatigue syndrome), many researchers feel that the actual number of giardiasis cases is astronomical. http://www.innvista.com/health/microbes/protozoa/giardia.htm.

A Baja friend wonders if one means of transmission is from flies that have visited giardia-contaminated animal feces and then alight on our food.

You can read more about giardia at the two websites above. If you think after reviewing the websites that you may have giardiasis, you can do one of the following:

1) Convince your doctor to prescribe Flagyl, 250 mg, which you take orally three times daily for 5 days. Or go to a Mexico pharmacy and ask for the generic, metronidazole, western medicine’s treatment of choice. However, the side effects of this medication are highly unpleasant and include nausea (about 12% of patients), headache, low appetite, vomiting; diarrhea; epigastric distress; and abdominal cramping. Constipation has also been reported. http://www.drugs.com/pro/flagyl.html. Don’t forget you must abstain from alcohol while taking it or you can become very sick. I convinced my U.S. doctor to prescribe some, and I took it as directed. I felt great for a week thereafter, but then the symptoms returned. I can’t find it now, but a friend sent me a website that reported studies which showed a 90% probability of giardiasis relapse after a course of Flagyl. So why put yourself through five days of tortuous side effects?
2) Get some Daxon (Nitazoxanide, http://www.expert-reviews.com/doi/pdf/10.1586/14787210.2.1.43) from a Mexico pharmacy. It works differently than Flagyl –you can do your own research. But one study found it helpful for 47 out of 55 patients, compared with 44 of 55 patients taking Flagyl http://www.expert-reviews.com/doi/pdf/10.1586/14787210.2.1.43. Not much difference! I tried this as well, and the side effects were nearly intolerable. I was so bloated I felt as if I were going to fly away any minute! And again, my previous symptoms returned within a week.
3) ParaGone. You can order it from many sites via Google. You take the drops and capsules for 10 days, then take a break and begin it again. It seemed to help with my symptoms, but one or more of the herbs in that concoction made me inordinately cranky!
4) Other natural cures. http://www.diagnose-me.com/cond/C172355.html. I found that 3 fresh medium-sized garlic cloves (don’t hassle peeling them--buy the jar of peeled cloves in the produce dept of your grocery store), chopped fine and swallowed (not chewed! Your stomach will rebel!) with a glass of apple or orange juice first thing in the morning, waiting an hour to eat, helped tremendously after 5 days.
Don’t be tempted to buy that jar of chopped garlic, which has preservatives and thus isn’t as effective. I got tired of chopping garlic in the morning, along with all my other household chores, and instead bought a bottle of 2000 mg. garlic tablets (odorless) at a U.S. drug store. I won’t endorse a product on this site, but you can find it on Amazon and via google. I take one every morning with my other vitamins (garlic is great for treating high cholesterol and high blood pressure too, though I don’t have to worry about these), and if I feel the giardiasis symptoms coming on again (some people are more susceptible to the little guys—see the innvista website address above), I take another one in the evening before bed. At first, it may irritate your stomach and cause more gas, but Beano and Vitamin C help allay the symptoms, and your digestive system will adjust in a week or so.
A friend who is an expert in ayurvedic medicine says giardiasis is quite common but correctable with good diet that includes plenty of antioxidants, bioflavinoids and mitochondria building foods (another thing to google!), along with exercise and a generally healthy lifestyle.
I wash my hands more frequently and open public bathroom doors with a towel or long sleeve. I’m now symptom-free for the most part and wondering whether I’ve had a mild case of giardiasis for years, since the intestinal symptoms I’ve suffered off and on have abated. Of course, a large part of my health now (I haven’t had a cold in over a year!) is the stress-free life I live in Baja!