http://home.vicnet.net.au/~mecfs/general/parasites.html
Intestinal Parasites May Be Responsible for Chronic Illness
The following information comes from various USA sources, resulting from recent
developments in diagnosing and treating intestinal parasites.
Dr Leo Galland, a physician from the USA recently stated "every patient with
disorders of immune function, including multiple allergies (as well as)
patients with unexplained fatigue or with chronic bowel symptoms, should be
evaluated for the presence of intestinal parasites."
Over recent years, according to Dr Galland, the technology for diagnosis and
treatment of intestinal parasites has improved markedly. This fact has helped
to provide evidence for the view that intestinal parasites are responsible for
a higher proportion of chronic illnesses than was previously thought.
Two intestinal parasites are of particular importance. They are Giardia lamblia
and Entamoeba histolytica. It is important to realise that both these organisms
have a cosmopolitan distribution.
G. lamblia can produce symptoms that include nausea, bloating, weight loss,
vomiting, loss of appetite, epigastric pain, abdominal cramps, food
intolerance, chronic fatigue, chemical intolerance, immunological dysfunction,
diarrhoea and others. Irritable bowel syndrome can sometimes actually be caused
by G. lamblia.
E. histolytica can produce diarrhoea, food intolerance, fatigue, dysentry and
other symptoms. Not all patients infected with intestinal parasites display
gastrointestinal problems, but can have other symptoms which improve once their
infection is treated. It has been shown recently that some non-pathogenic
parasites can cause disease in immuno-compromised patients. How relevant this
is to CFS, I am not sure. Ulcerative colitis can sometimes be a mis-diagnosed
E. histolytica infection.
As you can see, many of these symptoms may be confused with those exhibited by
CFS patients. It should be understood that only a proportion of patients
diagnosed with CFS may actually be suffering from intestinal parasites and
improve once their infection is treated. The chronic illness produced by
intestinal parasites may in fact be CFS in some cases; it is just that the
trigger in these cases was an intestinal parasite. In other cases, parasites
may produce illnesses that cannot be classified as CFS.
Dr Galland, who has been involved in some of the pioneering work in this area,
estimates that 20% of patients in the New York area who had been diagnosed as
having CFS, actually had intestinal parasitic infections and improved once
these infections were treated. The figure for Australia is unknown, but would
be interesting. Patients diagnosed with CFS who were actually suffering from
intestinal parasitic infections, tended to have more night sweats, fever, and
muscle aches and pains. These symptoms can sometimes be clues that intestinal
parasites may be present.
According to Dr Galland, current diagnostic techniques have a poor success rate
in picking up these parasites. Newly developed immunofluorescent stains are now
available, and when coupled with specific specimen collection methods,
reportedly provide a much higher rate of detecting these organisms. Some
laboratories in the USA are now using the new techniques.
It has been shown that current prescription drugs are often only effective with
acute infections. Chronic infections can cause severe disability lasting months
or even years, and often need to be treated for a much longer period of time.
Most prescription drugs are too toxic for such long term treatment. Some
doctors in the USA are using non-prescription drugs to treat intestinal
parasites, and these are claimed to be safer than the prescription drugs.
Unfortunately the new diagnostic techniques are only available in the USA and
UK as far as I am aware. One such laboratory claims to have examined over
40,000 specimens over the past 3 years.
If you are interested in more information, your doctor can write to-
Great Smokies Diagnostic Laboratory, 18A Regent Park Blvd., Asheville, NC
28806, USA.
Please note that the test can ONLY be organised through your doctor.
The lab will send out information and a test kit. The test is called
'comprehensive parasitology' and costs about $US 127.00. Should the results
show positive, your doctor can call the lab to discuss the new treatment
methods on: 0011 1 704 253 0621.
Bernhard Liedtke