Turning tables and new moons

As you might have read in my last entry, we've all been doing great on the Alinia (anti-parasitic) for the past two weeks.  Well now, the tables are turning and things are changing.  The new moon is in three days.  Gavin had been reacting to the new moon (always starting the week before the new moon), progressively worse with each passing month.  So naturally, I was curious to see what would happen while we were on the Alinia.

Three days from the new moon today
As the new moon approaches, we have sudden changes in Gavin and it looks like I will have to put my foot squarely in my mouth as I tell you that severe the die off has set in!  He went from being calm, happy and having fairly decent BMs to being in pain constantly, grabbing his belly and crying that he doesn't feel good and the BMs....wow.  A few days ago they began to change, I was noticing  they were full of black specs, like pepper, and the consistency was slowly becoming less formed.  Black specs are often associated with bad bacteria.  This is from the EnzymeStuff website:

"If you start any supplement that might create looser stools, temporary diarrhea, or die-off of yeast or bacteria (like an antibiotic, probiotic, digestive enzymes, antifungal, laxative, etc), you might see dark or black flecks in stool during this 'cleaning out' period. Certain types of adverse bacteria in the colon can produce dark residues and this is getting cleaned out."

I have also read about people who have seen this while doing colon and parasite cleanses.  Then two days ago, he began to have explosive diarrhea which has progressed to water and now today, they are burning his skin pretty significantly.  The colors have even been changing, progressively getting lighter so I am increasing his liver support.  The first couple of days with the watery BMs, his mood was horrendous, today his mood is better, but the stool is still awful and his belly hurts.  I was helping him eat a small lunch today and he had just barely finished swallowing his first bite when I distinctly heard his tummy grumble in distress, out loud.  Needless to say, his little meal was briskly followed by a visit to the potty.  This description of his parasite, from Humaworm,  just about sums up his die-off symptoms right now:


"DIENTAMOEBA FRAGILIS - this parasite lives in the large intestines - it is found worldwide. Symptoms include diarrhea, stomach pain and cramping, loss of appetite, weight loss, nausea and fatigue. This parasite infection stays in the large intestine - it does not spread to other parts of the body."

Fluids, fluids and more fluids
On a good note, he's drinking well, and a lot.  I've made him an electrolyte drink with coconut water, filtered water, salt and baking soda which he guzzles no problem. I think he has single-handedly downed 32 ounces already just today!  He is also still drinking his camel milk and kefir.  The milk will offer him the nutrition he's lacking from not eating very much.  As long as he keeps the fluids going through him, I feel ok with his condition.  His skin is slightly pale, but looks good and supple, cheeks still holding some color, and even though he obviously feels yucky, he is still responding with humor when we interact and play.  It seems that the effects today are purely gastrointestinal and that would make sense with parasite die-off.  

And what about mommy?
As we ended our last round of chelation, I began to feel nausea that I initially chalked up to the round, but it lasted days and was neck and neck with exhaustion that just won't go away.  I've also had much more severe and painful acne and the bulk of it is around my hairline, which I have read can be a symptom of parasites.  Today I woke with very achy, painful upper thigh and shoulder muscles and I  did not do any manual labor in the past day or two.  So it appears that even I am slightly reacting to this phase on the Alinia which would suggest that it's probable that I have the same parasite.  This could mean that my assessment of where Gavin contracted it is correct.....in utero?  How very disturbing!  If only I knew then, what I know now.

This is from the Humaworm site, interesting how the sore muscles are the exact muscles I am feeling pain in! 

Parasites can travel to almost all soft tissue including in the joints and muscles where they cause cysts and inflammation that is commonly mistaken as arthritis and muscle pain. The toxins from parasites can also pool in the joints and in muscle tissue causing:

Muscle Pain
Joint Pain
Muscle Cramping
Numbness of the Hands and/or Feet
Heart Pain
Pain in The Navel
Pain in the Back, Thighs or Shoulders
Arthritic Pains
Fast Heartbeat

Uh oh duty calls, quite literally, I think he might have had a blow out during his nap, in his sleep, he's crying now, I better go.

Alinia

We've all been on Alinia, an anti-parasitic prescription medicine, for a little over a week and a half.  I'm honestly surprised that more DAN! doctors aren't using this in place of meds like Flagyl, which wreak havoc on the body.  They could kill two birds with one stone, because in addition to fighting parasites, it also kills anaerobic bacteria like e.coli and clostridia!

The pros we have seen, by comparison to using Flagyl:

• no crazy die-off symptoms
• minimal bowel changes (although they do exist, they are not nearly as bad or as frequent as with the Flagyl, but Gavin is having a lot of black specs in his stool)
• only positive changes like more calmness, focused play, cooperative play with both boys, patience, increased compliance, happiness, no screaming for communication, better communication in general, bellies are lower, I could go on, but I think you get the point.
• and the best news, it doesn't kill off good bacteria (only anaerobic bacteria), so it can be dosed with probiotics and won't compromise the already damaged intestinal landscape!

The only con is that this product cannot be compounded, which means you are either stuck with a suspension that has red dye and sorbitol or large tablets with a yellow dye coating, sorbitol and need to be split.  We chose the tablets, because both boys can swallow pills and red dye is the absolute worst.  We peel the yellow coating off, split the tablets into quarters and put the pieces in some pear sauce since they no longer have their easy-to-swallow coating.  Oh, there is one other con, they need to be dosed every 12 hours which means we are waking them up at about 8:45pm (they go to bed pretty early) every night for 32 days.  Then combine this with round the clock dosing on weekends for chelation and boy it gets fun around here!

We are really hoping this takes care of the parasite for Gavin, he's a different child right now, we feel like we've finally seen the real Gavin come out of his shell.  Even Grayson has been effected by it quite a bit, so we are wondering, if he had the parasite undetected or if it was still clostridia at play in low levels.  He had started to get a bit grumpy, argumentative and negative for a little bit, now we are seeing our happy-go-lucky boy again.  We thought it was age-related stuff, now I am convinced more than ever that the difficult behaviors we see in kids is more than age-related.  Every time I've ever thought we could be over-analyzing age-related behaviors, I am proven yet again, that the condition of the gut is in fact related.

Oh the joys. Parasites and viruses.

I can't remember a time when we haven't had multiple experiences overlapping each other, graying the fine line that once existed between symptoms and results, cause and effect.  I hear myself relentlessly repeating, "it could have been, or it might be..., but I just don't know".

As you may know from reading my blog, Gavin has a parasite called Dientamoeba Fragilis, once labeled as a protozoa/amoeba, but more recently relabeled as a flagellate.  Lyme Disease is also a flagellate and as I am reading about the D. Fragilis, I am learning about the similarities they share, such as the many changing forms this parasite has....making it hard for any conclusive fact to be established about it's life cycle and stages.  One thing that has been determined is that it doesn't respond the same in a body as it does in a test tube or slide.  It isn't even known, if this parasite goes through a cyst change during it's unknown life cycle.  We don't know, if it hatches or reproduces with the full moon or new moon, or BOTH.  There is overwhelming evidence that these creatures cannot survive outside of the body, suggesting fluid transmittance or the use of another "host" to transmit them successfully from person to person.  It is most likely that they are hitching a ride on other parasites like B. Hominis or pinworm, etc.

I have a theory about how Gavin could have gotten infected with this one-celled parasite and perhaps has had it since birth (since all of his symptoms have been there since then).  When I was about 19 years old, I experienced a case of pinworm infestation which was ironically short-lived and didn't require treatment.  If D. Fragilis hitched a ride way back then, perhaps the pinworm situation resolved itself, but I could have been carrying around the D. Fragilis, asymptotically, which is not very uncommon.  Along comes this helpless baby boy who contracted my parasite in utero and never had a chance against infection from the very first breath he took.  He was immediately sensitive to foods like dairy and soy, he bloated early on, had torticolis (not sure if it's even related, but part of the big picture of his health), bowel movements varied from constipated to loose from the very first bite of "solid" foods, he had a seizure by the time he was a year old, and mood swings and control freak are understatements!  So here we are three years later, with possibly three years of damage from this GI-disturbing parasite.

What does all of this mean for families like ours who are trying tirelessly to rid themselves and/or their children of this monster?  It means experimenting with many treatment protocols.  We did multiple natural parasite cleanses from Humaworm and Artemesia to W-W from Pure Herbs and even higher doses of black walnut hull.  Although he always experienced some level of die-off, the symptoms never seemed to subside fully, he continued to have behaviors that waxed and waned with the moon cycles, very typical of parasite infestation.

Alinia was recommended by our DAN! doctor.  He gave us a script for just Gavin, 5 days worth.  So I did more research before even considering giving this RX to him.  I wanted to know more and had quite a bit of information already under my belt confirming that Alinia should only be used, if the doses are going to be high enough and used for long enough to rid him of this pesky intruder for good.  Just giving 5 days of meds could create a super-bug rather than killing it off, especially considering it travels with the ever-resistant B. Hominis which has a very long cyst cycle.  When a parasite is in it's cyst form, it is impossible to kill, so that means either knowing it's life cycle (which we don't) or treating for an entire month, plus a few days, to ensure hitting the exposed, non-cyst phase.

So as a last resort, we decided to attempt the Alinia, BUT only if we could have the longer dosing schedule and for the entire family since it is highly probable that this originated with one of us, and even if it didn't, we could pass it between us again post-treatment, all dependent on it's method of transition, but I don't like to take chances with our children and their health.  Our doctor was open to the treatment protocol I had found to be successful with multiple other families and ironically, our insurance actually covered it!!  Over $1000 per person worth of prescriptions, yippeeee!!

So here we are, on our third day of taking the Alinia (two days before the full moon), all of us.  I expected to be in a world of hurt, but surprisingly, it's been pleasant....well, hahahahaha, except for those around me, since I am very clearly effected by some form of die off, if you know what I mean (blushing).  Not very ladylike to say the least, teehehehe.  Gavin has had some gas as well, bowel movements were perfect for the first two days, but today we had what we have come to call Flagyl-poop.  Grayson was put on Flagyl years ago, for high levels of Clostridia (bad bacteria) and his BMs were hideous, they floated like chunks of cotton candy, attempting to stick together in what looks like it might have resembled a BM before exiting the body.  It is undeniably a die-off symptom.  Another interesting fact is that the Alinia also kills anaerobic bacteria like e.coli and clostridia, both of which we know Grayson has had, via stool samples.  This prescription has many modes of attacking our boy's ailments.  Lets just pray the results are permanent!

To add insult toinjury, two days into taking Alinia, poor Grayson contracted Coxsackie (Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease).  He developed a sudden high fever, lethargy, not hungry, sores in the back of his throat and he slept much of yesterday after  I loaded him up with 40,000IU of vit D3, OLE (which I confirmed wouldn't interact with the Alinia), Virastop and Lauracidin.  He woke without the fever, but was still very lethargic until bedtime, which he did not fight one bit.  He was ready.  Today, his mood is great, his eyes look bright, he is energetically playing with Gavin and he wants to eat, but his throat hurts too much to swallow anything solid. 

Amazingling (knock on wood), Gavin hasn't shown ANY signs of this illness....yet.  The contageous period can last weeks as the virus sheds, so I am praying Gavin's immune system is fighting it off successfully.  We are helping him with the natural anti-virals too.  In fact, Gavin is like a new child yesterday and today!  His mood swings are GONE, he is cooperative, compliant, happy and bouncy, his speech and ideas are more complex, he is playing nicely with Grayson (who is playing nicely back, HEAVEN for me), his belly was even flat for the first two days on the Alinia.  Today he has a little pouch after the strange BM, but still not as protruded as usual.  He's amazing, and I am relieved.  There is a glimmer of hope that perhaps this is Gavin's main health issue, and that perhaps we will have it resolved with treatment.

We just ordered follow-up hair tests with Doctor's Data, Inc. to see the progress we have made after a year of chelation with Gavin and two with Grayson.  The results should be in between tomorrow and Tuesday...I am so anxious!!  Maybe, just maybe, Gavin will still not meet Andy Cutler's counting rules and maybe, just maybe, this parasite will resolve the issues we were tying to mercury toxicity, and maybe, just maybe not having him vaccinated was the smartest thing we ever did!!  We'll see, one can hope, right?  Without hope, our days look dark.  I prefer to see the light at the end of the tunnel, even if my perception may be slightly off occasionally.  It can make the days in between seem less stressful.