Hey there, everyone! Would love to hear your opinion on my situation. My story is going to be pretty long just so you guys could see the whole picture.
I’ve been struggling with digestive issues ever since I was five: gastritis, gastroduodenitis, acid reflux - the youzhe. Had a great doctor back home in Russia: regular endoscopies, stool tests, everything and the kitchen sink. Courses of enzymes, probiotics, proton pump inhibitors (unfortunately) would resolve the symptoms for a while but things would flare up eventually every once in a while. My diet was always pretty good - no junk food, but quite a lot of dairy and gluten though, however no signs of intolerance. Nonetheless, it’s important to mention that I’ve been taking
Antibiotics regularly ever since I can remember myself, sometimes 2 to 3 times a year. Years later in my late teens I started having diarrhea often, was diagnosed with irritable bowl syndrome, candida on top of the usual gastritis, acid reflux etc.
Tested for
parasites - nada, no helicobacter pylori, nothing suspicious/interesting. Mind you, by that time my lifestyle got really out of hand. I was a heavy drinker (4-5 times a week), smoker, and wouldn’t say no to recreational drugs every now and then. On top of that I was constantly self-medicating to manage the GI discomfort.
Long story short, I started seeing a new GI doctor. The moment I walked in to her office, she went - “you have parasites”. We didn’t even do blood work or stool samples. We did some labs and my vitamin levels were pretty low, and I was diffident in B12. We started treatment right away - round one was Mebendazole, liver support, immune support, colon cleanse. Round two - metronidazole, liver support and all the other goodness and round three was praziquantel. The next day after taking praziquantel I woke up a different person! Baby pink tongue, fantastic mood, some sort of indescribable feeling of lightness and happiness. My digestion started working like a swiss clock. No more loose stools, no more cramps, like nothing was ever there, my liver which was previously enlarged got back to it’s normal size. In the next few months we repeated the praziquentel treatment to seal the results.
In the heat of the moment I went vegan (big mistake). I felt terrific for a while. I moved to a different continent, started school again, life was great! Not until I started breaking out (on my forehead). My skin got really oily, I started having dandruff and shedding hair. Did some labs - low B12 again, low vitamin D, low iron. And that’s only after 5 or 6 months of the plant based lifestyle. I started having reccuring UTI’s (again), so naturally I took
Antibiotics , did a few rounds of probiotics, vitamins, supplements etc.
However, nothing seemed to help with my skin and other symptoms. I started gradually introducing dairy and animal protein back into my diet and voilà my skin is looking perfect in a matter of days!
I started looking into candida diets. Have been doing a candida diet for almost 6 months now, leaning towards HFLC. Supplementing with probiotics, two rounds of SF7222 and two rounds of ADP, a lot of marshmallow root, two rounds of IPS and Gastrazyme, L-glutamine and tons of liver support. Overall I’ve been feeling awesome: loads of energy, mental clarity, no unpleasant signs of digestive discomfort, great stools for the most part. Recently I went travelling for almost a month, had wine occasionally, ate junk occasionally - nothing, no reactions, no break outs, no oily skin, only craaaaazy dandruff whenever I eat a lot of carbs (fruits, sweets, alcohol). However, I came home a few weeks ago, got food poisoning after eating beef tongue, and this is when all hell broke loose again. Cramps for a few days, breakouts on my forehead. I went back to a phase I candida diet, all seems super stable now, no discomfort, no cramps.
BUT I’ve been thinking that even while I was doing the candida diet this whole time with all the great supplements and anti-fungals my tongue was/is still very very coated. It looks quite pink right after I eat, but still thinly coated with more coating towards the back of the tongue (white). And the weird thing that I’ve been noticing throughout the last year or so is that when I eat something real crappy, like a burger or some chocolate - my tongue immediately looks amazingly pink!
Anyways, I started humaworm two days ago. So far so good, I feel very “awake” and energetic, however I break out on my forehead every day now and my dandruff is still totally out of control. Would you suggest trying anything else? I would love to hear your thoughts!
In health,
Bo