Understanding Parasites

It is often assumed that people living in the United States do not have parasites. For this reason, most people are not tested for parasites unless they have traveled to a tropical or third world country, or they have engaged in risky behavior, such as drinking from a stream.

Contrary to popular belief, it is not so unusual to find parasites in North Americans. However, you can’t find what you don’t look for. And since most people don’t get tested for parasites, most physicians therefore assume that parasites don’t exist here.

Complicating matters is that even if you have been tested for parasites, traditional stool testing is fairly ineffective at detecting most parasites.

Almost all testing for parasites involves a microscopic analysis of a stool sample. This means that a very small smear of a much larger stool sample is viewed under a microscope.

The parasite, or more likely the eggs from the parasite, must be present in that smear, and must be present in a significantly high amount to be found during the microscopic exam.

And the lab technician must be proficient at recognizing it when they see it.

Unfortunately, microscopic exams are notoriously unreliable for finding parasites. Although it’s been used for decades, microscopic examination is far from perfect.

Multiple stool samples are required in order to increase the reliability of the test, but parasites are still easy to miss. In fact, it can literally be like looking for a needle in a haystack, only now you have to use a microscope to examine the haystack.

Scientists have long known the ineffectiveness of stool testing for parasites, but recently it has been become more apparent with the development of DNA testing. DNA testing is now available to evaluate the contents of a stool sample, rather than relying on the imprecise method of a microscopic exam. And DNA testing has proven that it can literally find a needle in a haystack.

Since DNA parasite analysis became available just over a year ago, it has shown to be an extremely valuable tool for helping to identify parasite infections seen in patients at the IBS Treatment Center. As a matter of practice we have always tested patients for parasites, but prior to the availability of DNA parasite testing, parasites were rarely diagnosed. DNA testing is infinitely more sensitive in detecting parasites, and since the introduction of this type of testing, we have found parasites in far more people than we previously suspected could possibly have them.

Now we treat parasites at least once every two weeks or so, and not just the garden variety of parasites such as Giardia. Parasites come in a range of different types, such as amoebas (Giardia, B. hominis, D. fragilis, etc.), roundworms, tapeworms, threadworms, pinworms, flukes, and others. We have seen most of them several times, and each requires a different type of treatment. As a word of note, parasites generally require prescriptive medication for successful eradication.

Parasites can cause many different types of digestive problems, including gas, bloating, abdominal pain, diarrhea, and constipation. They are also capable of causing other types of health problems throughout the body.

You need not travel outside the United States to be exposed to a parasite or to contract a parasitic infection. We live in a very small world now where foods and other items are imported from countries near and far, and people from those countries often harvest foods in our own country. There is no guarantee that you are safe from parasites simply because you live in North America.

Please contact the IBS Treatment Center for more information about DNA parasite testing.

Image thanks to myvetachicago