good natural giardia cure! giardia poll

[makemerry]

I recently got giardia after a section hike from New York to Massachusetts.
I found a natural cure online that brought immediate relief and disappearance of all symptoms within 12 hours. It was on a web page on diagnose-me.com, and it said that 20-some number of people (I've had trouble finding the page again) with giardia took garlic on an empty stomach two hours before meals twice a day for three days and 100% of these people were symptom free after three days.
So I tried the same thing and got immediate relief from my ongoing severe stomach pains. All stomach pain and cramping were gone within 12 hours and did not reoccur. I chewed garlic cloves and washed it down with good purified water to make sure I got plenty of alacin, the curative property of garlic that is lost in many garlic pills. If you can find pills with a good dose of alacin in them, the article says those will work as well.
I have a theory that I'd like to run by those who've had giardia. The theory is that people a healthy and well-functioning digestive tract are not likely to get giardia and if they do it is not likely to cause serious distress nor is the giardia likely to survive long.
This theory is based partly on information I got from a hiker who'd had giardia whose doctor told him that giardia feeds on sugar and lots of people have giardia in their system, but it is often not a problem unless there is an imbalance like too much sugar consumption. This particular hiker's giardia became distressing and required treatment, he said, because he had come upon an ongoing source of free sugary cookies and consuming a lot of them prior to getting ill.
I started drinking water without treating it 8 days into my trail hike and noticed within a couple days that I had more gas than usual, but no diarrhea or stomach pains or any other distressing symptoms. I take probiotics daily, don't eat much sugar and probably have a fairly healthy digestive tract, maybe 6 or 7 on a scale where 10 is the healthiest. When I got off the trail I stayed with friends who offered me sugary baked goods for breakfast, and strawberry pie topped with gobs of whipped cream for lunch, all of which I consumed in large amounts. That night I woke up with stomach pains so bad I thought I was going to have to go to the emergency room. I think this distress was due to the sugar feeding the giardia. These severe pains persisted for two more days before I found the garlic cure online. A clove of garlic on an empty stomach two hours before dinner gave me instant relief; I had moderate stomach pain after dinner and complete disappearance of pain by morning. The pain has not recurred.
Does this theory match your experience?
Can you refine the theory to make it more accurate and descriptive?
Did you find an effective and helpful cure that you want to share?
Do you have time and interest to design a poll that may shed more light on this issue?

So, here's an initial poll:
Based on your own past experience with giardia, do you see a link between the existence/severity of giardia symptoms in your system and the excessive consumption of sugar or other unhealthy eating habits, lack of healthy bacteria in your system (perhaps due to consumption of antibiotic laden meat and dairy products), or other indicators or a less than healthy digestive system?
1) Yes, I can see a clear connection
2) I can see a possible connection
3) I'm uncertain
4) I don't see any connection
5) None of the above

Thanks.
Cheers.

[weary]

Put me down as uncertain. How do you know you had Giardiasis? (the disease. giardia is the paraside that causes the disease.)

It typically takes a week or more before symptoms of Giardiasis to show up after ingesting the parasite. Symptoms after two days of drinking suspect water -- as I understand it -- are unlikely.

More important: many ordinary stomach upsets mimic the symptoms of Giardiasis. These symptoms typically disappear in three days or less, whether one eats garlic or not.

Finally, unless you had your stool examined under a microscope and it showed the bugs, there is no way to distinguist Giardiasis from more routine stomach problems.

Weary

[makemerry]

I didn't have a stool sample taken, so I don't know for sure that I had giardia. It was an assumption, based on that being the first time in my memory of having stomach cramps and pain like that. I don't typically have stomach problems. I had been on the trail for a week, long enough to have gotten giardia even though I was initially treating my water. And, whether or not I had giardia (I do wonder now what else it might have been), I'm still curious to know if the theory fits the people's experience. Thanks for your response!

[orangebug]

Gotta agree with Weary (we are near the End Times). All that squirts ain't Giardia. The short acute gastroenteritis could have been from just about anything.

[weary]

Gotta agree with Weary (we are near the End Times). All that squirts ain't Giardia. The short acute gastroenteritis could have been from just about anything.
Come on, OB, I agree with all of your medical opinions -- and most of your political opinions. Us semi-liberals need to stop bickering over nonsensical matters.

Weary

[Tinker]

Gotta agree with Weary (we are near the End Times). All that squirts ain't Giardia. The short acute gastroenteritis could have been from just about anything.

I agree with the above also. I got the exact symptoms after hiking the Bonds in New Hampshire (and camping at Camp 16, which is heavily used, and drinking untreated water),
but since I never saw a doctor about it, and hence never had a positive test, I can't honestly say I had it for sure (though I believe with all my heart I did).

Bloating, belching, projectile vomit and runs, fever, extreme fatigue....

YUCK!

[Brrrb Oregon]

As a medical friend sometimes says, the most likely diagnosis is true, true, and unrelated.
a) Gastrointestinal distress isn't always caused by infections. For instance, gorging on pastries when you are not used to it can make you sick, regardless of what you do.
b) Ongoing stomach cramps can go as suddenly as they appeared, no matter what you do, and usually do, so there is no reason to believe you would not have recovered in exactly same way without the garlic and water fast.
c) Your symptoms don't indicate giardia as a prime candidate. Even if you did have an infection, there is no reason to believe you had giardia, rather than some other bug.

[makemerry]

Several of you havel caught me on an assumption that was perhaps unwarranted--i.e. that I had giardia--so I will back off on on saying that I necessarily had giardia. But I'm still struck by the coincidences. I've gorged on sweets before and never gotten stomach pains. Never gotten stomach pains for any reason. The relief from stomach pains when I took the garlic was immediate, as if the garlic went right to work, killing the bad actors. The stomach pains had been ongoing for two days. Maybe not giardia. But is it also possible that it was giardia? It's hard to prove anything based on one experience. Whether or not I had giardia, I'm interested in other people's experience treating giardia by other means than flagyl and a trip to the doctor. Here's the webpage and the study that I got the idea to try garlic for my stomach pain from:

http://www.diagnose-me.com/cond/C172355.html

Researchers Soffar and Mokhtar performed an open trial investigating the use of garlic in giardiasis. Twenty-six children infected with G. lamblia took 5ml crude extract (fresh garlic blended with distilled water and then centrifuged and filtered to remove the solids) in 100ml water twice daily or a commercial garlic preparation two capsules (0.6mg capsules) twice daily for three days. Both preparations were given on an empty stomach two hours before meals. Clinical symptoms subsided in all cases within 36 hours. Parasitic cure (according to stool examinations) occurred within three days of beginning treatment.

[orangebug]

At the very least, your anecdotal evidence of garlic treating gastroenteritis probably shouldn't hurt anyone, so long as they maintain hydration. I wouldn't want to try treating cholera with it, or typhoid.

What works against this idea is the absence of generally/folk accepted usage of garlic for such conditions. We have many who would have taken some White Georgia Clay (kaolin or Kaopectate), ginger, bicarb and the like to try to settle down the earlier cramping symptoms. Rice water once was a pretty universal treatment, helping hydration and getting some sugar into a kid.

I just can't recall anyone suggesting garlic in such a situation. I'd also love to hear how anyone got a kindergarten kid to sip an extract of garlic from either a spoon or a smelly capsule. It is hard enough to get one to chew on a Flintstone's vitamin.

[Greentick18d]

Last I looked the *theory* is that the GI tract is made inhospitable and so the parasite, of whichever type, just doesn't hang around. Adding some hot peppers to your diet (not hot sauce) *theoretically* will help with prevention. Plus they just plain taste good. In the name of rapport building in several 3rd world countries I have drank what I would consider bad water. Fortunately hot peppers and onions (raw) were being served so I chowed down and had on lli stceffe I mean no ill effects:-? .... I would mark a "giardia window" on my calendar. I have had giardia in the past but treated it with flagyl (an antibiotic).

[Brrrb Oregon]

Several of you havel caught me on an assumption that was perhaps unwarranted--i.e. that I had giardia--so I will back off on on saying that I necessarily had giardia. But I'm still struck by the coincidences. I've gorged on sweets before and never gotten stomach pains. Never gotten stomach pains for any reason. The relief from stomach pains when I took the garlic was immediate, as if the garlic went right to work, killing the bad actors. The stomach pains had been ongoing for two days. Maybe not giardia. But is it also possible that it was giardia? It's hard to prove anything based on one experience. Whether or not I had giardia, I'm interested in other people's experience treating giardia by other means than flagyl and a trip to the doctor. Here's the webpage and the study that I got the idea to try garlic for my stomach pain from:

http://www.diagnose-me.com/cond/C172355.html

Researchers Soffar and Mokhtar performed an open trial investigating the use of garlic in giardiasis. Twenty-six children infected with G. lamblia took 5ml crude extract (fresh garlic blended with distilled water and then centrifuged and filtered to remove the solids) in 100ml water twice daily or a commercial garlic preparation two capsules (0.6mg capsules) twice daily for three days. Both preparations were given on an empty stomach two hours before meals. Clinical symptoms subsided in all cases within 36 hours. Parasitic cure (according to stool examinations) occurred within three days of beginning treatment.

Actually, the fact that you have never had stomach pains for any reason is a bit of a red flag. For instance, when I have stomach pains that have been ongoing for two days, they are normally are gone by the third day, no matter what I do. Most things run their course.

I couldn't get the webpage to come up for some reason. Those are interesting results. What happened with the control group? It's pretty difficult to "double blind" a garlic study, but there should be a control group getting same treatment, sans garlic.

Also, there is no reason to believe that garlic would be some kind of silver bullet that only worked on giardia. I'd expect it would have some sort of effect on all sorts of things. Having said that, people should keep in mind that garlic and garlic oil are susceptible as carriers of botulism. I don't mean garlic cloves with intact skin. I mean cut-up garlic. (The same with green beans, too, as an example.)

[RedneckRye]

For whatever it is worth, I rarely treat water in any way. I try to avoid sources that look bad and I understand that how water "looks" has no bearing on if it is contaminated with "nasties" or not. I've found that I have less digestive and bowel issues on long hikes than I do in "normal" life at home. Of course, it is sort of tough to get hot wings and draft beer out in the woods.
RYE

[TIDE-HSV]

said I had it - out of a small lake in the western Wind River Range which had a huge beaver in it. I boiled my water, but, like an idiot, rinsed in raw lake water. It didn't hit until I'd been home for about a week. It was unlike any runs I've ever had. Around mid-AM, it felt like a rat was trying to eat its way out of my stomach. The runs were watery and gaseous, but not like, for example, samonella. The cure was two weeks of a sulfa which required no alcohol intake whatsoever. I'm very suspicious of "folk" cures. I tend to think that most people who think they've had Giardia haven't had the real thing...

[bfitz]

Garlic is good for your digestive tract and helps fight fungi and toxins while sugar feeds such things (including giardia) so likely the garlic did you some good regardless of what you may have had.

[Brrrb Oregon]

said I had it - out of a small lake in the western Wind River Range which had a huge beaver in it. I boiled my water, but, like an idiot, rinsed in raw lake water. It didn't hit until I'd been home for about a week. It was unlike any runs I've ever had. Around mid-AM, it felt like a rat was trying to eat its way out of my stomach. The runs were watery and gaseous, but not like, for example, salmonella. The cure was two weeks of a sulfa which required no alcohol intake whatsoever. I'm very suspicious of "folk" cures. I tend to think that most people who think they've had Giardia haven't had the real thing...

This sounds more like the reports I have heard....both the severity of the symptoms and the delay of onset. "I've had stomach troubles before, but nothing like this!"

Like any infectious disease, there have to be people who get a mild case. Even so, without a lab culture, no one can know. As you say, there are times when the folk remedy isn't going to cut it. Heck...there are times when the "Best Western" medicinal remedy doesn't even cut it.

[makemerry]

"Actually, the fact that you have never had stomach pains for any reason is a bit of a red flag."

I'm not categorically saying I've never had a stomach pain. I'm saying stomach pains are rare, and insignificant when they do happen. What would that be a red flag for?

"Also, there is no reason to believe that garlic would be some kind of silver bullet that only worked on giardia. I'd expect it would have some sort of effect on all sorts of things."

I'm not suggesting that it's a silver bullet. I would think, like you say, that it's probably helpful for a lot of things.

Just to restate what I'm looking for:
1) I'm interested in the experience of other people who have used garlic or other alternatives to flagyl to treat giardia.
2) I'm interested in the experience of people who don't treat their water and don't get giardia. (I have found several such posts on this website.) Specifically I'm wondering if a healthy digestive tract is the reason these people don't get symptoms of giardia.
3) I'm curious to know anyone can corroborate the opinion of the doctor who said that severity of giardia symptoms is often related to consumption of sugar (which is also related to the general health of the digestive tract.)
4) This is not an attempt to prove anything. I'm tossing out an idea and I'd like to hear people's actual experience that might either corroborate the idea or not.

[Brrrb Oregon]

"Actually, the fact that you have never had stomach pains for any reason is a bit of a red flag."

I'm not categorically saying I've never had a stomach pain. I'm saying stomach pains are rare, and insignificant when they do happen. What would that be a red flag for?

Oh. I thought you really meant never. For someone who just does not get stomach pains at home, it wouldn't take much on the trail for something not too far from normal to seem like an awful lot. Giardia, OTOH, is a memorable event even for those who are fairly accustomed to gastrointestinal problems of one kind and another.

It's kind of like the caution that sudden onset of "the worst headache you've ever had" is a warning sign for a stroke. If you're the kind who just never gets headaches, it isn't so much of a red flag. It doesn't mean that a person who never gets headaches would not still find a stroke to be the worst headache they've ever had. It just means that it is far more likely for them to describe a "normal" headache in that way.

I've been around the sufferers, but so far, knock on wood, have not been stricken myself. If you had anything like that, you have my fullest sympathies. Now, I'll quit chiming in and leave the comments to the actual sufferers.

[Dingus Khan]

I think the Ol' G is a bit over rated. I wish I could find the link (somewhere on this site) but it was quoting a respectable medical source in which the author detailed that appox 90% of reported Giardia infections were really nothing but G.E. with E. Coli being the largest contributor.... a simple washing of the hands before eating would dramatically reduce the incidents of the beaver fever.
Albeit I have never had Giardia or know of anyone that has had a diagnosed case of it, but believe, being a RN I have seen some rectal discharges that make me pray that I NEVER EVER have anything close or similar to reported incidents.

As far as garlic goes, there have been recent studies stating that previous pro-garlic studies really were not conclusive when the evidence was correlated anew. This is going to be one of those "i'll never really know" topics, but it definitively can't hurt you.
A low sugar diet will help in limiting the metabolism of the critters (good and bad) slowing down any transition from being simply colonized (having the bugs without any symptoms, most of us fit the bill) to infected where the belly pain starts.

[Dingus Khan]

i would not recommend self dosing of antibiotics either, opportunistic infections can occur and you may give yourself Clostridium Difficile while trying to prevent Giardia.

of all the antibx's, flagyl is relatively safe and recommended for gram neg and gram pos bacilli as well as gram pos cocci (both anaerobes) which are found in your GI tract. It is also an anti protozoan (sp) so Giardia is toast.

[Smile]

I have some Oaxacan friends from Mexico, who swear that eating avacados raw, will kill most if not all parasites in the gut, and that they've been using them for years for this.

I hope to never have the need to try out this treatment to see if they are right :)

[CoyoteWhips]

How's wormwood tea for treating giardia?

Just wonderin'.

[Tinker]

Put me down as uncertain. How do you know you had Giardiasis? (the disease. giardia is the paraside that causes the disease.)

It typically takes a week or more before symptoms of Giardiasis to show up after ingesting the parasite. Symptoms after two days of drinking suspect water -- as I understand it -- are unlikely.

More important: many ordinary stomach upsets mimic the symptoms of Giardiasis. These symptoms typically disappear in three days or less, whether one eats garlic or not.

Finally, unless you had your stool examined under a microscope and it showed the bugs, there is no way to distinguist Giardiasis from more routine stomach problems.

Weary

I had similar symptoms once, except that I also experienced projectile reactions from both ends. This was about a week after a trip to the overused Pemigewasset Wilderness Area in the WMNF back in the early 1980's. Never diagnosed either, just assumed.
Bought a First Need water filter, used it religiously (except when boiling water to cook food), and never had a problem again.

Put me down as uncertain as to the "cure". It seemed to work for you, but you might have had another "bug".

[CoyoteWhips]

I have some Oaxacan friends from Mexico, who swear that eating avacados raw, will kill most if not all parasites in the gut, and that they've been using them for years for this.

I hope to never have the need to try out this treatment to see if they are right :)

Avocados, jalapenos, goat cheese ... apparently if you eat the food, you can drink the water.

[jnohs]

one thing i find is that i eat really healthy when huking. so i find when i go home and eat normal sugary fatty foods it will most definalty give me stomach problams.

[warraghiyagey]

I have some Oaxacan friends from Mexico, who swear that eating avacados raw, will kill most if not all parasites in the gut, and that they've been using them for years for this.

I hope to never have the need to try out this treatment to see if they are right :)
It's even more delicious sliced with some favorite cheese on wheat thins!!

[Mrs Baggins]

I agree with the above also. I got the exact symptoms after hiking the Bonds in New Hampshire (and camping at Camp 16, which is heavily used, and drinking untreated water),
but since I never saw a doctor about it, and hence never had a positive test, I can't honestly say I had it for sure (though I believe with all my heart I did).

Bloating, belching, projectile vomit and runs, fever, extreme fatigue....

YUCK!

Gee, sounds just like the 10 days we spent in Guatemala.......and it kept coming back for two weeks afterwards. No we didn't drink the water but when you shower some gets in your mouth no matter how hard you try to keep it out.......and we ate some fresh salsa (uncooked veggies). Ahhh, the memories. Good times, good times..........:p

[Mountain Dew]

You didn't have giardia. You ate something or perhaps had dirty hands when you ate something that gave you a really bad upset stomach. Giardia involves not only a severe upset stomach, but throwing up and the meanest case of the poo's that you have ever witnessed. Oh and making it go away in 12 hours isn't possible.

[Appalachian Tater]

Iit is pretty obvious from the description that it wasn't giardia.

[funkcicle]

Kind of an awkward first post, but I figured I'd chime in since this thread was helpful to me. I'm fairly certain I picked up Giardia from some spring water in the Adirondacks about 5 weeks ago. I didn't go to the doctor as I'd blown my medical allowance on a bout with tonsillitis a couple of months earlier(I'm self employed and uninsured), and it wasn't bothering me too majorly so I didn't pay it much attention(though the thought of Giardia was in my subconcious).

The symptoms set in about 2 weeks ago, a slight stomach cramp here and there and more gas than usual, along with some mild runs. Midweek last week I realized that I was pretty dehydrated after drinking a liter of water and not having to pee immediately afterwards, so I got on the net and started researching Giardia. The Wikipedia article described word-for-word what I was experiencing... constant gas, sulfuric belching, greasy floating stool, dehydration, slight malnutrition (despite my fairly healthy diet).. further research cemented my diagnosis, particularly what I read about sweets feeding the parasite -- at the onset of my symptoms I'd purchased a fresh baked starbucks cookie and was unable to finish it due to an odd heartburn-like sensation in my intestine.

Fast forward to 2 nights ago, I found myself on WhiteBlaze reading all I could about peoples' experiences with Giardia.. reading of peppers and the like making my intestine inhospitable to the parasite, I adjusted my diet yesterday accordingly: lunch was a spicy greek quesadilla chock full of peppers, onions, and goat cheese, along with a side of home-made salsa to dip it in. I'd had constant increasingly sulfuric burps for the previous 48 hours or so, approaching "gag-me" stength right before that lunch, but halfway through that meal the sulfuric content was already on a noticeable decline. I chugged water the rest of the day, and before bed last night choked down a half clove of garlic(tougher than i'd have thought!) along with my remaining slice of quesadilla. Now it may be too early to pronounce myself "cured", but I woke up this morning feeling great, and all day have produced but a single belch, with no noticeable sulfuric content.

So like I said.. a bit of an awkward first post, and maybe a bit "TMI" for an introduction, but I just wanted to thank you folks for sharing the information that I feel rescued me from quite an unpleasant state! I also wanted to share a word for those who are weary of "folk remedies": just as everything that ails us comes from nature, the remedies for our ailments can be found there. "Modern medicine" is really just the product of the last 100 years or so of trial and error and blind experimentation, and in it's infancy when you compare it to the last 1,000/10,000/100,000 years of human experience. I shudder to think of what chemical regimen the doctor would have prescribed to treat the same ailment that I was (presumably--and I admit it's a presumption) able to get rid of with little more than a half clove of garlic. Peace to you all, and thanks again for the help :dance

Anthony

[fiddlehead]

I like the garlic idea. (i used to be a garlic farmer and grew a lot of it trying to get people to see it's many qualities)

I will give you a little of my experience with giardia.
It was in Nepal in 1990, I got it and my farts and burps smelled like sulfur. (big time)
It lasted pretty much the rest of the 30 day trek once i got it until i got back to Kathmandu and went to a Canadian doctor there. (Nepal is full of giradia) He gave me a choice of medicine and i remember i took the one called Tin-a-Ba and he said i could take one pill a day for 10 days, or 2 pills a day for 5 days or 5 pills a day for 2 days. Up to me.

SO, i took the 5 pills a day for 2 days and it made me sick (i was just learning to control all the ****s but it made me sick again) But after 3 or 4 days, i was fine.

I have been back to Nepal 6 or 7 times since then and the last time (after drinking the water on all my thru's) I drank the water in Nepal and didn't get sick!
This leads me to believe that once you get giardia, your body learns how to handle it and you don't get it again. (why else can all those millions of Nepal people drink the water and not get sick?) (Granted they have a high mortality rate when very young but i think that's cause they are perhaps weak and can't fight off the first case)

Anyway, I know some experienced hikers agree with me and once you have it, you are ok with it. But i still like the garlic idea. Hope it catches on.

It did suck when i had it (giradia) but looking back, it enabled me to do a lot of hiking without carrying that extra weight and spending all that time pumping water. (i'd probably use chlorine anyway, much easier and lighter)

[amf]

"Actually, the fact that you have never had stomach pains for any reason is a bit of a red flag."

I'm not categorically saying I've never had a stomach pain. I'm saying stomach pains are rare, and insignificant when they do happen. What would that be a red flag for?

"Also, there is no reason to believe that garlic would be some kind of silver bullet that only worked on giardia. I'd expect it would have some sort of effect on all sorts of things."

I'm not suggesting that it's a silver bullet. I would think, like you say, that it's probably helpful for a lot of things.

Just to restate what I'm looking for:
1) I'm interested in the experience of other people who have used garlic or other alternatives to flagyl to treat giardia.
2) I'm interested in the experience of people who don't treat their water and don't get giardia. (I have found several such posts on this website.) Specifically I'm wondering if a healthy digestive tract is the reason these people don't get symptoms of giardia.
3) I'm curious to know anyone can corroborate the opinion of the doctor who said that severity of giardia symptoms is often related to consumption of sugar (which is also related to the general health of the digestive tract.)
4) This is not an attempt to prove anything. I'm tossing out an idea and I'd like to hear people's actual experience that might either corroborate the idea or not.

I followed your advise and it seems to be working. I Did not have any tests done for giardia but the symptoms were spot on from what I researched on the web. After suffering from what I thought was a stomach flu for almost two weeks, I realized it had to be something else. That is when I found your post. I have also found information on people using garlic to control parasites forever and that gairdia does feed on sugars. After all of my research, I would also agree that a healthy immune system can also control the infection to a certain level and the most effective way of boosting your immune system is removing refined sugars from our diet.

Thanks for the tip. All these people that doughted you may have suffered just as we did but find it hard to believe there could be such a simple solution.

[Homer&Marje]

I voted Possible connection being that many parasitic s feed on sugars and or carbohydrates which produce sugars

Maybe someone has said it.



Water.




Filter.

[randyg45]

"This leads me to believe that once you get giardia, your body learns how to handle it and you don't get it again."
I absolutely believe that applies to many many things- including poison ivy, from which I suffered terribly, every summer, as a child; now I'll typically get a mild rash over a small area of my body (perhaps a fourth of a forearm or most of an ankle), if I get it at all.

I don't treat water. I don't avoid sick paople. I don't have a fetish about washing hands or pots or whatever- basic sanitary procedures seem to work fine for me. I live by the idea of keeping my immune system fit by giving it lots of exercise. Hell, if the booze and drugs during my "lost years" didn't kill me.....

I also cannot see any disadvantage to eating garlic and peppers, and can see many advantages not heretofore mentioned, including forcing vampires and other trail crazies to keep their distance!

[saimyoji]

Never filter. Get sick. Bost your immunity.

[saimyoji]

Bost = Boost

[Footslogger]

I'm with the rest of the doubters on this one ...

That said, next time you travel take along some generic chewable PeptoBismol tablets and chew a few each day. The bismuth will make your stool black, but just temporarily.

Best "preventive" method known for "travelers gastroenteritis"

'Slogger

[Homer&Marje]

"This leads me to believe that once you get giardia, your body learns how to handle it and you don't get it again."
I absolutely believe that applies to many many things- including poison ivy, from which I suffered terribly, every summer, as a child; now I'll typically get a mild rash over a small area of my body (perhaps a fourth of a forearm or most of an ankle), if I get it at all.

I don't treat water. I don't avoid sick paople. I don't have a fetish about washing hands or pots or whatever- basic sanitary procedures seem to work fine for me. I live by the idea of keeping my immune system fit by giving it lots of exercise. Hell, if the booze and drugs during my "lost years" didn't kill me.....

I also cannot see any disadvantage to eating garlic and peppers, and can see many advantages not heretofore mentioned, including forcing vampires and other trail crazies to keep their distance!

I am a firm believer that I am no where near a germaphobe. I do however treat my water while I am back packing. I think the fear comes less from getting sick, I do have a very good immune system, but rather the fear of having to leave the woods early due to not feeling good.

Sorry, but I don't want to have to cop out of a 3000' climb to a great spot simply because I have explosive "ends".

Not that you were directly referring to me, it was just an afterthought when I read your post in particular.

[oldbear]

Iit is pretty obvious from the description that it wasn't giardia.
I totally agree .When you get your first [and hopefully last ] case of giardiasis there will absolutley no doubt what-so -ever about what just hit you . I mean both ends of your body just explode and you can't stop it .You grab a pillow and move into your your bathroom for a while
I got it when i was I hiking in Grand Canyon NP about 25 years ago and in the dark I got my water from the clear and cold Hermit Creek. What I didn't know was that there were pit toilets above me. OOPS!!
One week later everything kind of exploded. I went to the hospital they took a stool sample , asked me if I had had visited a Third World country recently....and then confirmed the diagnosis of giardiasis
Flagyl does work wonders

[Footslogger]

Flagyl does work wonders

================================

If you survive to talk about it. That Flagyl is some pretty potent juju. After 2 dosing regimens of Flagyl back in 2001 I was starting to think that the Giardiasis wasn't all that bad.

But yeah ...it works !!

'Slogger

[CareGiver]

I provide in-home health care for the elderly and began caring for an elderly woman three weeks ago who was having digestive problems. Within a week after caring for her I developed uncontrollable diarrhea. It came on suddenly and lasted almost 5 days with accompanying loss of appetite and general malaise. I thought I had a touch of food poisoning but it seemed to go away. Within a week afterward I suffered extreme intestinal cramping after eating ice cream. As others have mentioned, I thought I'd have to go to the emergency room. Two days ago the daughter of the woman I care for told me her elderly mother was being treated for a giardia infection, so it is quite likely I also have contracted giardia, which is contagious. I started a regime of garlic oil, probiotics and Goldenseal yesterday, and so far no more disabling abdominal pain, however soreness lingers.

[swjohnsey]

Most folk who think they have giardia don't

[Mongoose2]

. I'd also love to hear how anyone got a kindergarten kid to sip an extract of garlic from either a spoon or a smelly capsule. It is hard enough to get one to chew on a Flintstone's vitamin.

You must have kids!

[makemerry]

"You didn't have giardia. You ate something or perhaps had dirty hands when you ate something that gave you a really bad upset stomach. Giardia involves not only a severe upset stomach, but throwing up and the meanest case of the poo's that you have ever witnessed. Oh and making it go away in 12 hours isn't possible."

"I totally agree .When you get your first [and hopefully last ] case of giardiasis there will absolutley no doubt what-so -ever about what just hit you . I mean both ends of your body just explode and you can't stop it .You grab a pillow and move into your your bathroom for a while "

Wow! What an interesting discussion ... and still continuing 5 years later.
Initially, I was convinced by those people who maintained (very categorically, see above posts) that they were sure I didn't have giardia. They based this judgement on their own memorable experiences with how terrible giardia CAN BE. But now I'm thinking it's possible that the severity of their giardia may have corresponded with the condition of their digestive tracts and may not be a good indicator of how everyone else would experience giardia.
It is well established that some people who don't treat their water on AT or in foreign countries nevertheless do not get sick. Clearly these people are ingesting the same giardia bacteria that everyone else who gets sick does ... so these people who don't treat their water do have giardia, but the symptoms are either mild or completely un-noticeable. So, I'm not sure that the fact that I didn't have as severe symptoms as some people have had means I didn't have giardia. Maybe it just means that I had a healthier gut in some way (un-impacted by habitual sugar use, stronger immune system, etc.) ... just a thought.
Thanks everyone for sharing your experience and ideas here. It appears, from reading these posts, that at least one or two people who had the same experience I did (intensifying of symptoms after eating sugar) tried garlic as a result of reading this discussion and had symptoms disappear.

[mega82]

Has anyone tried Diatomaceous Earth? It cleans the parsites out of your system and adds needed silica for your joints.

http://naturalsolutionsradio.com/blog/geraldmartin/diatomaceous-earth-human-use-diatomaceous-earth-84-silicon-dioxide-silica

I had cronic stomach problems untill my doctor told me to take this. You can get it at health food stores or at feed stores, just make sure it's food grade.

http://www.healthy-health.com/site/844294/page/3266670

[warpzilla]

I had the dirty G eight days from finishing the AT in '07. Bunked up in Rangeley for 5 days with Bob O'brien, not a bad place to be stuck, just wish I wasn't poopin my pants every 15 mins. The medical clinic there initially prescribed the wrong dosage of prescription. After my second trip to the pharmacist (not the DR.) he informed me that I was taking about 10% of the dosage I needed to be. Thanks Medical Clinic. As far as the eating is concerned, I ate healthy the first couple of days, then when no changed happened, I just started grubbing on whatever I felt like cause it was all coming back out anyway.

I released the Final Demon at the Northern Outdoor resort right after crossing the Kennebec River with the help of a giant quesadilla. Great food there, now I'm hungry!