Natremed

Most people cringe at the thought of worms or other little creatures inhabiting their bodies, but in reality most of us will suffer some symptoms related to parasites at one time or another. It makes no difference where you live, how clean you are and whether you have pets or not, if you’re not worming yourself with a herbal/homoeopathic remedy every 3 months, then you probably have them.

Parasites can cause major problems in our bodies, stealing our vitamin and minerals stores, releasing toxins into our system, causing dysbiosis in our gut, and they can move through our intestines and into our circulatory system, through the lungs, liver, bile ducts, joints, heart, into the brain and eyes, no body part is immune to their attack. They get into our bodies by inhalation, ingestion from contaminated food and water, handling raw meat or fish, handling our pets, from fleas and other insects, through our skin and via sexual contact. Many parasites have been in our bodies almost our whole lives and provided the infestation with them is small, you may have very few symptoms at all, as our bodies are great at trying hard to keep in a balanced state. It can cause some stress on the body in trying to do this, and while may not kill you, it will keep you from being totally vibrant and healthy. When the infestation is a little greater, problems start to occur. You may only suffer from the effects of it occasionally or all the time. It may appear as vague symptoms, headaches, stomach cramps, occasional flatulence or loose bowel motions or other symptoms which you’d never relate to parasites such as arthritis, heart disease or pneumonia. Here is a list of possible signs and symptoms of worm infestation.

Some common parasites include the roundworm which lives in the small intestine and can grow as thick as a pencil and 20-40cm long. They can move around in the body and can be picked up on veg and fruit grown in affected soil and are also airborne. The pinworm is also quite common mainly residing in the ileocaecal area of the large intestine. The eggs from the worm can survive outside the body for some time, hatch and then crawl into your body, are you squirming yet?? These eggs can also be airborne, and are commonly found on clothing, furniture, in the bedroom and in the dust on furniture or the floors.

The whipworm is small at around 5cm and infestations in the bowel can mimic inflammatory or irritable bowel disease. Contact comes via food or water or our hands. The adult worms can imbed themselves in the colon all the way to the rectum. Hookworms are very small at 11-13mm and normally live in our body for 1-2 years but can live as long as 15 years. They can penetrate human skin and cause a rash, though infection is can be oral also. They can enter the lungs and when they do a dry cough or sore throat may be noted. Other worms we can get include dog heartworm, intestinal roundworm from cats and dogs.

Other parasites we may contact are toxoplasmosis which is most known for the fact that pregnant women are supposed to avoid handling cat faeces due to the risk of contacting this one. It can also be found in undercooked meats, contaminated soils, flies and cockroaches carry it too. Cryptosporidium is also found all over the world and is a common cause of gastroenteritis.  Infection occurs by Ingesting contaminated drinking water, as it is immune to chlorine’s effect. At home a good water filter will usually kill it or you can boil the water, but while this kills bugs, it actually concentrates toxins in the water. Cryptosporidium in a healthy body doesn’t cause too much trouble, but otherwise it causes mild flu like symptoms, diarrhoea, stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting, fever and lack of appetite, lasting several days to weeks. In those with a lowered immune system it can linger for months and years and even cause death.

Giardia is one bug which most of us will have had, infection occurs via contaminated water or food or hand to mouth contamination, It causes severe diarrhoea, leading to dehydration and at times malabsorption.  Tapeworm infections are often asymptomatic if contained to the bowel,  and come from either pork or beef.  Pork tapeworms can cause serious effects  due to tiny cysts they cause. Dog tapeworm can also effect cats and humans, and fish tapeworm from eating raw or undercooked fish or handling fish doesn’t cause too many problems, although can cause hypoglycaemia and lower our levels of vitamin b12. So the bottom line is no matter how clean or careful you are, you can’t avoid contact with parasites. Your best bet is too worm the whole family every 3 months, and do some work on your digestive and immune systems so your body can better handle any infestations that do arise. We can test your system for the presence of specific worms etc with theratesting and then prescribe remedies to counter the infestation.

By: Nicole Tricarico