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Posts Tagged ‘getting rid of worms’

postheadericon That is Not Tumor, It’s a Brain Worm

 Lauren Cox from ABC News Medical Unit has posted another wonderful in-depth story. This time about a parasitic worm eating Rosemary Alvarez’s brain. Yes you read that right… eating her brain. Can you imagine anything as gross and disgusting as that?  Many more people that you would think have worms/parasites. This is one woman’s story and it is extremely well written:


ABC News Medical Unit
Nov. 24, 2008

Late last summer, Rosemary Alvarez of Phoenix thought she had a brain tumor. But on the operating table her doctor discovered something even more unsightly — a parasitic worm eating her brain.

Alvarez, 37, was first referred to the Barrow Neurological Institute at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix with balance problems, difficulty swallowing and numbness in her left arm.


“Ones like this that are down in the brain stem are hard to pick out,” said Nakaji. “And she was deteriorating rather quickly, so she needed it out.”


“I was actually quite pleased,” said Nakaji. “As neurosurgeons, we see a lot of bad things and have to deliver a lot of bad news.”



“It wasn’t that she had poor hygiene, she was just a victim,” said Nakaji.


Pork Tapeworms a Small, But Growing Trend

“We’ve got a lot more of cases of this in the United States now,” said Raymond Kuhn, professor of biology and an expert on parasites at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. “Upwards of 20 percent of neurology offices in California have seen it.”





How Humans Get Worms

Eat the parasite in tainted meat and you’ll end up eating the larvae, called cysts. Kuhn said in that case, a person can only end up with a tapeworm.

“You can eat cysts all day long and it won’t get into your brain,” said Kuhn. Instead, the larvae go through the stomach and mature in the intestine.

“When it gets down into their small intestine, it latches on, and then it starts growing like an alien,” said Kuhn.


“They can see these little packets pass in their feces,” said Kuhn. “And … sometimes people eat the eggs from feces by accident.”


Unlike the cysts, the eggs are able to pass from the stomach into the bloodstream. From there, the eggs may travel and lodge in various parts of the body — including the muscle, the brain or under the skin — before maturing into cysts themselves.



“These eggs can live for three months in formaldehyde,” said Kuhn. “You got to think, sometimes, a person is slapping lettuce on your sandwich with a few extra add-ons there.”


Getting the Worms Out

Dr. Christopher Madden, an assistant professor in the University of Texas Southwestern department of neurological surgery in Dallas, has operated on a number of these cysts himself. He said not every worm needs to be surgically removed; those whose location is not an immediate threat to the patient’s health can be treated with medications that cause the worms to die.


“Most patients we see actually do very well with medicines and/or surgery to take out a large cyst,” Madden said.


“But lodging in the brain stem is bad luck,” he said.

Nakaji said other parts of the brain have more “room” or tissue to expand around a growing cyst. However the brain stem, which is crucial to life, is only the width of a finger or two.

“She could have recovered,” said Nakaji. “But if the compression lasted for long enough, she could have been left permanently disabled or dead.”

Link back to original post here

postheadericon Parasites And Our Pets

Here is an interesting article about parasites and our pets. I have pasted the entire article here. I found the article here   This post talks about our pets having parasites. I use diatomaceous earth to keep the parasites on my pets under control. I am sure you will find this an interesting read.

We adore our pets.  In return they accept and love us for who we are, even if we’ve had a bad day at the office, not put on the right eyeliner, are hours late to feed them or are distracted with other thoughts when they want our attention.

Humans are exceptionally good at looking after their pets when there’s something wrong with them.   Or at least we think we are.  The trouble is that, even with the animals best interests at heart, pet owners too often rush to the vet for minor ailments and the resultant treatment could be the proverbial sledgehammer cracking a nut.  In most cases preventive treatment would considerably cut down on a number of unnecessary health scares every year.

The first thing you need to have a look at is the food you are giving your pet, because many pet foods manufacturers use unpardonable ingredients as filler.  Most household cats are fed on only dried pellets but when did you last see cats in the wild foraging for dried foods?

Parasites in animals

All animals have  internal and external parasites. Internal parasites live in the intestines, bloodstream, joints muscle tissue and the brain. External parasites such as fleas, ticks, mites and lice live on or just under the skin. Internal parasites include intestinal worms as well as protozoa such as giardia, often ingested from contaminated water supplies. All parasites can cause discomfort, illness and even death.

The incidence of parasites in animals is high although it depends on the animal. Domestic pets that forage for mice, birds and other such wildlife will ingest parasites from their prey.  The danger is that these parasites can be passed on to their owners in a variety of ways. How many children play in sandpits where dogs or cats have left their calling card?  Or how many people are repeatedly licked on the face by a friendly pet?  How many people don’t scrub their fingernails before eating?

How can a parasite possibly live inside your body?  The answer is simple. The purpose of a parasite is to not make itself known. Parasites are very adept at evading a response from the immune system. They live undetected because once they are revealed, something will be done to eliminate them.  Parasites have an innate ability to survive and reproduce.  This is the purpose of any organism on this planet. Although this may sound simplistic it can make life for humans very difficult.

If you know how to recognize and interpret the symptoms, the presence of a parasite can be established easily. In humans this can manifest as low energy levels, health conditions, skin rashes, pains, frequent colds, flu and constipation.  The list goes on and on. The key is to question these symptoms rather than think such afflictions are commonplace.

In his book, “Animals Parasitic in Man.” by Geoffrey Lapage, states: “There is no part of the human body, nor indeed, any part of the bodies of the hosts of parasitic animals in general, which is not visited by some kind of parasitic animal at some time or another, during their life histories.” In short parasites can migrate to any part of your body. No organ is immune from their infestation.

Parasites that regularly affect animals include microscopic protozoans, a host of migratory worms and arthropod parasites such as mites, ticks, lice, fleas and even some spiders.

Hookworm infection occurs when larvae in the soil penetrate the pet’s skin, move into the bloodstream, and eventually travel to the intestine. Adult worms mature in the wall of the intestine and feed on blood from the intestinal lining, sometimes causing serious anemia.

Roundworm infections of dogs and cats occur when microscopic worm eggs present in the soil are eaten. The eggs develop through larval stages in the gut; some larvae penetrate the intestinal wall, migrate to the lungs and are coughed up then re-swallowed, after which they re-enter the small intestine where they mature into adult worms. Roundworms compete with your pet for food, causing malnutrition.

Roundworm enter their host by ingestion; hookworm by active penetration of the skin; the heartworm enters its dog host with the help of a mosquito vector. Microscopic larvae enter the blood along with mosquito saliva when an infected mosquito bites a dog. The larvae uses the blood stream to carry it right into to the heart where it matures, infesting the heart’s chambers and lodging in the veins that enter the heart.

National Geographic: October 1997   “Parasites: looking For a Free Lunch”
“Some parasites can change the habits of animals, prodding them to adjust their usual behaviour.  Horses of the Camargue in southern France leave their creekside habitat for a higher ground during hours of peak horsefly activity.  Field crickets in Hawaii adjust the timing of their mating songs to avoid attack by parasitic flies, says Marlene Zuk, a biologist at the University of California, Riverside.  Even the stripes of a zebra may be an adaptation for evading the blood-sucking tsetse flies of sub-Saharan Africa.  Tsetse’s often carry parasites called trypanosomes, microscopic protozoans that cause sleeping sickness in humans and nagana in animals, a disease marked by fever and anemia which usually ends in death.”

Discover Magazine  August 2000   “Do Parasites Rule the World?”
Leopard frogs may harbour a dozen species of parasite, including nematodes in their ears, filarial worms in their veins and flukes in their kidneys, bladder and intestines. One species of Mexican parrot carries 30 different species of mites on its feathers alone. Often the parasites themselves have parasites of their own.

Ann Louise Gittleman  “Guess What Came to Dinner?”
“Pets are host to numerous parasites and are unexpected spreaders of disease.   There are 240 infectious diseases transmitted by animals to humans.  Of these 65 are transmitted by dogs and 39 by cats.  One pet food manufacturer in America says that 89 percent of household cats sleep with their owners.  “Dog and car roundworm, hookworm and cat-transmitted toxoplasmosis can become severe in pregnant women and children and even life threatening in immunocompromised individuals”  Phillip Gosciensk, M.D. Head of the Infectious Disease Branch of Pediatrics at the Naval Regional Medical Center, finds it remarkable that these diseases are almost always unsuspected and unrecognized.“

Carl Zimmer  “Parasite Rex”
“Animals will sometimes defend themselves against parasites with a change of diet.  Some will just stop eating.  If a sheep is hit by a bad dose of intestinal worms, for instance, it may graze only a third of its normal intake.”

“Some animals under attack by parasites will start eating foods they almost never eat. Some species of wooly bears for example normally eat lupine.   When attacked by parasitic flies that lay eggs in their bodies, the woolly bears increase their chance of survival by changing from a diet of lupine to one of poison hemlock. The parasitic flies still crawl out of their bodies, but some chemical in the hemlock helps the woolly bears stay alive and grow to adulthood.  The woolly bears in other words have evolved a simple kind of medicine.”

“Sick chimps will sometimes swallow certain kinds of leaves whole; they will strip the bark of other plants and eat the bitter pith inside.  The plants have almost no nutrition in them, but they have another value.  The leaves seem to be able to clear out worms from the intestines, and the bitter pith is used as a medicine by the people who share the forest with the chimps. When scientists have analyzed the plants in laboratories, they’ve discovered that they can kill many parasites.”

With thanks to National Geographic, Discover Magazine, Ann Louise Gittleman and Carl Zimmer

I use diatomaceous earth for parasite control in my pets.

postheadericon Talking About Parasites

I have found a very interesting article about parasites…. it came from I have pasted the entire article here. They have several recommendations for getting rid of parasites. I would simply suggest using diatomaceous earth… but that is just me.  It really is a very interesting read.

What are parasites?

In the next page we will examine how to get rid of parasites. But first, what exactly is a parasite? A parasite is an organism which lives off the host, the host being you or me. The parasite lives a parallel life inside our bodies, feeding off either our own energy, our own cells or the food we eat.

In recent medical studies, it has been estimated that 85% of the North American adult population has at least one form of parasite living inside their bodies. Some authorities feel this figure may be as high as 95%.

The immediate question that comes to people’s minds when they become informed of this situation is: “How can a parasite possibly live in my body and I don’t even know it is there?” The answer to this is simple:. the nature of a parasite is to not make itself known. A smart parasite lives without being detected because if it is detected, of course, something is going to be done to eradicate it. Parasites are “clever” in their ability to survive and reproduce, which is of course, the purpose of any organism on this planet. It sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? And in some ways it is, but it can make life for humans very complicated.

In the book, “Animals Parasitic in Man” by Geoffrey Lapage, he states: “There is no part of the human body, nor indeed, any part of the bodies of the hosts of parasitic animals in general, which is not visited by some kind of parasitic animal at some time or another, during their life histories” This means parasites can occur anywhere in your body. No organ is immune from their infestation.

Parasites – hard to detect and hard to get rid of!

If you were to get tested by a doctor for parasites, chances are the results would come back negative. Does this mean with certainty that you do not have parasites? Unfortunately medical testing procedures only catch about 20% of the actual cases of parasites. There exist over l,000 species of parasites which can live in your body, however tests are available for approximately 40 to 50 types. This means physicians are only testing for about 5% of the parasites and missing 80% of those which are present. This brings the ability to clinically find parasites down to l %.

The book, “Medical Parasitology” by Markell and Voge, points out that therapy to remove entire tapeworms from the small intestine is only successful if the whole worm is expelled. If the head remains, the entire worm will grow back.

How, then, do you determine whether or not you have parasites? In order to understand how to make this determination, you have to understand what a parasite does. A parasite eats, lays eggs and secretes. Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? First let’s look at the “eats” part. Depending on the kind, parasites will eat different things. Some parasites love sugar, for instance. If you are a person who craves sugar, you may have a sugar loving parasite. These parasites live off the food that goes into your body. They exist mainly in the digestive tract, but can also be found in the liver, as well as throughout the body.

Other parasites actually get their nutrition directly from the cells of the body. They can literally attach themselves anywhere and suck nutrients out of the cells. These parasites are significantly more dangerous because they can travel to areas in the body where they can do a lot more damage than a parasite living exclusively in the digestive tract.

As if it wasn’t bad enough to have an uninvited guest living in your body, the parasites eat your nutrients before you do! They get the best nutrients, we get the scraps and leftovers. They grow healthy and fat, yet your organs and skin starve for nutrition. What’s more, parasites can remain in your body for 10, 20 or even 30 years.

To illustrate the longevity of parasites in the human body, consider this example: in l979, a British study reported on 600 former prisoners from World War 2. These men had been stationed in the Far East. Thirty years after the war, 15% were still infected with a parasite called Stronglyloides which they had contracted during the war. This means you could have eaten meat 10 years ago that was contaminated and still be hosting the tapeworms or other types of parasites which were in that meat.

Parasites reproduce quickly!

Let’s now examine the way parasites reproduce. First of all, we need to understand that there are two major categories of parasites: large parasites, which are primarily worms, and small parasites which are mainly microscopic in size, including what are called protozoa and amoebae. Despite their being almost invisible, small parasites can be dangerous. Microscopic parasites can get into your joints and eat the calcium linings of your bones. This can lead to arthritic tendencies. They can also eat the protein coating on your nerves (the myelin sheath) and this can cause a disruption in the nerve signal from the brain. One type of tiny parasite which infects the colon is called “Entamoeba Histolytica”. This type of infection can also be found in the liver, the lungs, and the brain. The disease is called amebiasis, and is often transmitted via contaminated food or water.

Large parasites, which are the worm type, are usually large enough to be seen with the naked eye. Some can be up to 10 or even 15 inches long and in most cases cannot travel to other parts of the body, other than the digestive tract.

The smaller parasites, the protozoas and amoebas, can function almost like a bacteria by traveling through the bloodstream to virtually any part of the body. They reproduce without laying eggs and behave more like an infection in the body than do the larger parasites.

The larger parasites are worms which reproduce by laying eggs. Eggs are deposited into the intestinal tract, where they stick to the walls of the intestines. When the eggs hatch, the young feed on the food that we eat and eventually grow into adults. The adults then repeat this process.

Some of the larger parasites:


The fish tapeworm is the largest of the human tapeworms, reaching the length of 33 feet or more. There can be 3,000 to 4,000 segments in one worm. It can produce more than 1,000,000 eggs a day. This type of infestation can cause anemia because of interference with vitamin B12. Tapeworms can also cause water retention. Besides tapeworms from beef, pork and fish, there is also a type of dog tapeworm you can get when dogs lick your face or hands.


Pinworms are very infectious and can cause a lot of itchiness in the anal area. The worms deposit their eggs mostly at night, contaminating pajamas and bed linen. The eggs are readily transported through the air, and it is not uncommon to find them in every room of the house. Complications are much more common in women than in men. Pinworms can also sometimes be found in the vulva, uterus and fallopian tubes because the worm loses its way while trying to return to the anus after depositing its eggs.


Another type of roundworm that can be present in humans is whipworms. These insidious creatures actually inject a digestive fluid which converts the colon tissue into liquid which the worms suck up. Dr. Norman Stoll, a former worm expert at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, estimated, in the 1940s, that the roundworm infects about 644 million people in the world. Nutritional deficiencies are seen in heavy roundworm infections. That figure must now be much higher 60 years later.


Hookworms bite and suck on the intestinal wall, which can cause bleeding and necrosis (death of the tissue). In severe infections, iron deficiency becomes a problem because of all the iron that is lost to the hookworm. Hemoglobin levels as low as 15% of normal have been seen in patients with severe, long-standing hookworm disease.

The smaller parasites reproduce without the process of laying eggs. They reproduce by duplicating themselves in a manner similar to bacteria or viral reproduction.

Parasites Secrete Toxins

The 3rd thing which parasites do is secrete. All organisms secrete something, whether it be lubricants, waste materials, protective liquids for warding off viruses, bacteria and other harmful organisms, or secretions to help attract food. No matter what the secretion is– the secretion can be a toxin to the host organism. Simply put, the secretions from parasites into our bodies are poisons and toxins which our bodies are forced to deal with by increasing the process of detoxification. As anyone who has ever maintained an aquarium knows, ammonia is extremely toxic, yet it is one of the gases excreted by parasites living within human and animal hosts.

On the other end, a chronic parasitic infection secreting low levels of toxins can create an extremely strained immune system which may allow varied health problems to develop. When the immune system is strained over a long period of time, it of course, becomes weak. When the immune system is weak, our bodies become susceptible to infections of all kinds. This can be an extremely dangerous situation in this day and age because we are exposed to more viruses than ever before. Also, they are changing and adapting at a very fast rate as are the bacteria, many of which are now resistant to antibiotics and other artificial measures which used to combat them.

People with a weakened immune system tend to feel tired all the time. Some people refer to this as “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome”. If this sounds like you or someone you know, you may want to seriously consider the possibility of a depleted immune system caused by a chronic parasitic infection.
Parasites create toxic overload

If parasites secrete toxins into our bodies which our bodies need to neutralize, and we happen to be one of those people who drinks alcohol, smokes cigarettes, eats junk food and breathes polluted air, the extra stress and strain on the body’s cleansing system can be enough to push the body into what we call toxic overload. Those last few lifestyle choices we just mentioned are under your control, however.

Transcendental meditation has helped me make marked improvements in not only my health and behavior but all aspects of my life. I highly recommend you look into it .

Toxic overload occurs when the 4 cleansing systems of the body have been pushed too far by an overload of toxins in the body. Parasite toxins in the body are one more thing a toxic body does not need.

There are 4 cleansing systems in the body: the lungs, kidneys, skin and bowel. With toxic bowel syndrome, the excess of toxins absorbed from a clogged up bowel goes to the liver. The liver is then over-burdened, eventually unable to cope with this toxic load and the toxins start to spill into the bloodstream.

Once this happens, the kidneys, lungs and skin have to take over the job of cleansing and they too become challenged in their ability to remain healthy. So you see, parasites can be one of the most damaging health factors threatening the world today.

Now let’s examine what we can do to rid ourselves of parasites.

Parasites – getting rid of them

The following herbs are the most effective for parasite elimination:

Black Walnut Hulls
Pumpkin Seeds
Male Fern
Cranberry Powder
Grape Seed Extract

(Most of these herbs can easily be found at my favorite source for organic herbs.)

The 3 most important herbs on this list are: Black Walnut Hulls, Wormwood and Cloves.

black walnut for parasites

Black Walnut Hulls


Black Walnut is both anti-fungal and anti-parasite and acts as a laxative which expells worms and parasites from the body. Black Walnut oxygenates the blood which helps to kill parasites. Black Walnut aids in expelling tapeworms, pinworms, and ringworm. It has also been shown to be specific for treatment of Candida Albicans. Black walnut extract is a powerful vermifuge agent for treating parasite conditions. Black walnut extract greatly assists the removal of parasites from extracellular fluids, such as the blood and lymph, and in organs such as the liver, kidneys, brain, heart and intestinal tract.

wormwood for parasites


The wormwood shrub grows wild in Europe, North Africa, and western Asia. It is now cultivated in North America as well. The leaves and flowers, and the oil obtained from them, are all used in herbal medicine. Wormwood should be used cautiously. It may anesthetize a worm enough that it looses its grip on the intestines so that it can be eliminated. This said, wormwood has some other properties that qualify it for an antiparasitic protocol: it reduces stomach pain and helps to relieve the anemia that often accompanies parasitization of red blood cells.

cloves for parasites


For parasite cleansing, it is necessary to use fresh cloves that have not been irradiated. Most spices are irradiated with 35,000 the amount of radiation permitted in a chest x-ray. This is supposedly done to eradicate bacteria, but spices are generally excellent bactericides so the irradiation is merely a way of destroying the precious properties of spices. Non-irradiated spices are available from most high-end health foods stores. My favorite source for non-irradiated spices on the internet is here. Cloves are antiseptic, bactericidal, and antiparasitic.

When parasites die off, their dying bodies generate ammonia and can cause a toxic reaction. Doing a liver cleanse will help reduce toxicity and eliminate toxic reactions from parasite die-off that could otherwise adversely affect the liver.

Coffee enemas work extremely well in reducing toxicity and eliminating adverse reactions caused by toxic overload.
Once the parasites are gone

Since parasites thrive in the absence of proper intestinal flora, once we are rid of the parasites it is wise to repopulate the body with intestinal flora. Chlorinated water and diarrhea cause destruction and loss of friendly flora so every effort should be made to rebuild the flora. Turmeric greatly assists this work as do supplements of acidophilus, bifidus, bulgaricus, and other probiotics.

Destroying parasites, while making sure that the body’s immune system is supported throughout this process, and rejuvenating the large intestine are the main steps and may take weeks or months. Since the parasites may have caused anemia, blood building may also be necessary. Perforation of organs is another possible complication of infection. Rejuvenative herbs for the liver, kidneys, intestines, and even the brain may also be advisable.

Or you can just use diatomaceous earth