I always discounted the idea that I had filaria because what I felt moving around my body tissues was large, not tiny. And filaria are tiny, aren't they?

Not necessarily.

There are two terms you need to know. Macrofilaria and microfilaria. Macrofilaria are the adults and microfilaria are the young stages.

It is true that microfilaria are small and some macrofilaria are relatively small (1 - 3 inches, but some are up to 11 inches).

Do a Google Image search on "Dirofilaria" to see the size of the adult worms of one species.

How could I possibly get filaria as it comes from a mosquito bite in non-us countries? Well, that is true of Tropical Filiara worms, but not true of zoonotic filaria. Zoonotic filaria is filaria people get from animals.

Yes, you can get filaria from your dog or your cat if they are infested based on the reports I've read. In fact one journal article stated that they believe filaria of ANY animal can adapt to humans, though not all will reproduce.

Excerpt: "It is probable that almost any filaria parasitizing animals can, under proper circumstances, infect humans and undergo some degree of development."

Report on Zoonotic Filaria: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC106837/

The heartworm you guard your dog against, yep, that is a species of filaria.

Macrofilaria can live in your lymph system, in your muscles, in organs, under your skin, etc. depending on what species you have.

The good news about filaria: Most/many filaria have a symbiotic relationship with a specific type of bacteria and they require that bacteria for their survival. Microfilaria require it for their short term survival and macrofilaria require it for their long term survival. So in ICU's protocal where she says to take doxycycline, it is actually as an anthemlintic against filaria. It kills the filaria.

Killing the bacteria will kill the microfilaria AND sterilize the macrofilaria (make it so they can't have babies) and eventually kill the macrofilaria. Albendazole alone and Ivermectin alone will not kill the macrofilaria. Even with the doxycycline it could take the macrofilaria up to 3 years to die. But it keeps it from reproducing more microfilaria and the life span of macrofilaria can be ten years and up, so going from ten years to 3 years is a great thing.

So if you feel a roundworm in your body tissues that is just not dying no matter how many rounds of Albendazole you do, consider filaria.

Especially consider filaria if you have had a pet who had fleas or who you spent a ton of time with outside where you might have both been bitten by mosquitoes. Filaria travels to new hosts through blood bites, from many blood biting insects (fleas, flies, mosquitoes, etc.)

The doxycycline must be taken for 6 weeks and ivermectin and albendazole are required at the end of the protocol in all the trial studies I've read, but the doxycycline is ESSENTIAL for the success.

But success is relative. In the studies in endemic countries participants were sometimes 97% cured, but rarely 100% cured after 3 years. I'm not sure if this is because they kept getting bit by insects and the disease was so prevalent in the countries so they kept getting reinfected, or if just some small number of worms survive. So, for me, I plan on repeating this regimen for 6 weeks out of every year for several years at least. In fact, I'll repeat it once after a short break, after I'm done with this first round.

There is no other human medicine that treats filaria as thoroughly, though there is a massive effort underway to develop a macrofilaricide within the next five years. The medicine DEC has some killing affect, but isn't near approaching a "cure" from what I understand so far. Doxycycline is it kids, for now.