D-Frag Update

After hassling with my HMO pharmacy, I finally got enough Alinia for my 3 day treatment of the dientamoeba fragilis parasite. My doc called in the prescription early Tuesday morning. I called the pharmacy to determine whether my prescription was ready. They told me they didn't have any Alinia at that clinic, but would contact other clinics. Later they told me they located some Alinia and would have them on Wednesday afternoon. When I went to the pharmacy on Wednesday, after an hour wait, I was informed that they could only locate 5 of the 6 pills (needed for the 3 day Alinia treatment). They weren't certain when they could get the 6th pill. One person tried to dissuade me from even beginning the treatment, because I only had 5 pills. I told her I'd already suffered painful symptoms of this parasite for over 2 months and didn't intend to delay treatment any longer.

I asked when they might get my last pill, they told me to call the pharmacy the next day. Before I called the next morning, someone from the pharmacy called me to tell me they did get that last pill, which I could pick up anytime. Of course that was after I freaked out about not having enough Alinia for a full treatment. So I picked up the last Alinia Friday afternoon and took that Saturday morning, which finished the prescribed 3-day treatment for d-frag.

During the 3 day treatment I experienced many common Alinia side effects (nausea, cramping pain, diarrhea one time). However, I also experienced my usual soy reaction (waves of cramping pain through my gut). I suspect that I didn't experience more diarrhea from the Alinia, because soy usually causes constipation. So the 2 side effects cancelled out each other and I had rather normal stools. However, the cramping pains continued after I took the last Alinia Saturday morning. So I don't know whether I still have d-frag in my gut (which also caused cramping pain) or I'm still reacting to soy.

I have not begun the 7 day post treatment probiotic program (127 billion good bacteria daily), because I don't know whether I actually killed off the d-frag. I'd hate to take all those probiotics and then destroy them with another treatment. So I decided to wait 3 days after treatment to see whether the possibly soy reaction my current cramping pain is just delayed soy reaction from the Alinia.

If I feel almost normal tomorrow, I will commence the 7 day probiotic treatment. If not, I need to tell my doc that the alinia didn't erradicate the d-frag. However, I don't want to take more Alinia (which contains soy). I'd consider Humatin (paromomycin), which is free of my allergies, even though people can develop c-diff after taking Humatin for long periods. I just hope Alinia did the trick. Only time (and absence of gut cramps) will tell.