Re: Mystery illness - diagnosis/opinion needed pls

I've read that the only way to diagnose eosinophilic esophagitis is by biopsy of the esophagus.

My blood tests 'negative' for eosinophils.

I have not had a biopsy done because I can't find a doctor who will take me seriously. Except one. I'll be seeing him hopefully tomorrow. He ordered some blood tests, filaria, eosinophils and an antibody but I don't know which one.

I honestly don't know if I've been infected with strongyloides or not. The symptoms match. I originally thought it to be hookworm because I wasn't aware of any other parasite that caused cutaneous migration of the larvae. Hookworm seemed like the closest to my symptoms except that if I'd been infected some time ago, it wasn't logical to continue to have larvae migrating or appearing after I cough, blow my nose, etc. months later.

Yes, I've been taking ivermectin. At first I took a single dose on Jan 22. Then another single dose two weeks later. That didn't clear it. So I got some albendazole and took it for 6 days straight, twice a day. It did nothing.

Back to ivermectin and I'm now on day 8, once a day. I will continue to take it once a day until the symptoms go away. This morning I felt like it finally might be happening. I didn't cough up nearly as much as I have every other morning. So I'm hopeful.

Unfortunately, without any medical assistance, I've been left to my own devices with medications. I own a horse, spend a great deal of time on farms and am familiar with livestock medications. Horses have to be dewormed regularly because they constantly reinfect themselves by grazing.

So I went to the seed co-op and bought myself some ivermectin drench for sheep. :(

Good news, though. The ivermectin prescribed for humans is in pill form. The sheep drench is a liquid with alcohol and alcohol makes ivermectic twice as available. :D Tweet