Waiting and Researching

Waiting helplessly for the holiday weekend to pass so that I can contact my doc about my test results is just not my style. Besides my symptoms have intensified during the past few days, maybe because I know what's happening to my body. I have a dangerous, aggressive parasite overwhelming and damaging my intestines while another equally dangerous bacteria is damaging my stomach. Rather than let my doc prescribe ineffective treatments with drugs that make me sicker than the gut bugs, like he did with flagyl for c-diff, I researched online which drugs commonly eradicate dientamoeba fragils (d-frag) and helicobacter pylori (h. pylori).

I learned that traditional docs commonly prescribe 2-3 antibiotics PLUS acid blocking drugs to treat the h. pylori, because they can't eliminate that bacteria with any one drug. Also they believe eliminating acid will help kill the h. pylori. Actually h. pylori survives high acid stomach environment, but THRIVES in low acid environments. So the acid blocker really just relieves possible burning pain from peptic ulcers caused by the bacteria. I already have hypochloridia (low stomach acid) for which I need HCl supplements to digest proteins and fats. So abstaining from HCl automatically relieved my burning pain symptom.

However, I don't want to overwhelm my gut with 2-3 antibiotics and kill all my good bacteria. So I researched natural treatments. I learned that mastic gum is an old but very reliable treatment (outside of our drug industry controlled country) for stomach ulcers, gastritis, etc. Research has shown that mastic actually kills h. pylori, which explains why that supplement can treat stomach ulcers (by killing bacteria which damages the stomach).

I could wait another 36+ hours to hopefully contact my doc and determine whether he uses the traditional (2-3 antibiotic) h. pylori treatment. However, I'm already tired of feeling too full, nauseas and bloating after eating small amounts. So I found a local source of mastic gum at a reasonable price. I'll begin taking that supplement tonight before bed. Usual dosage is 1 gram daily on an empty stomach (before bed or before breakfast) for 4 weeks. I have 60 capsules of 500 mg each. So I have enough for treatment.

As for the d-frag parasite, I do need to wait for my doc to call in a prescription to my local HMO pharmacy. (My HMO docs are useless for most of my gastro problems, but I can get really expensive drugs for a reasonable copay price of $15-30 per prescription. So I ask my naturopathic doc to call my drug prescriptions into my HMO pharmacy.

I learned that d-frag is commonly treated with flagyl or tetracycline or paromomycin or iodoquinol. I HATE flagyl. I didn't read any patient comments about flagyl's effectiveness with d-frag. I read many comments that tetracycline treatment was equally ineffective. So I'm considering paramomycin or iodoquinol. I read many success stories with iodoquinol and a few with paramomycin. So I'm leaning toward iodoquinol.

My HMO drug availabilty and info warned me against taking paramomycin for long periods, because people can easily get c-diff after that treatment. Been there, done that, got the c-diff stuffed animal souvenier. LOL So I definitely don't want to take anything that could possibly leave me vulnerable to more c-diff.

However iodoquinol has a list of not so nice possible side effects. Nevertheless I read many 'dangerous side effects' about vancomycin, which cured my c-diff. I later learned that oral vanco didn't cause those side effects, but side effect info just lists any possible side effects without describing treatment style. (Hospital patients with central line dosing often get the dangerous side effects. People taking oral vanco don't. So I need to do more research on iodoquinol vs. paramomycin.