Do You Suffer from a Parasite?

Many Americans have been through the nightmare of living with a parasite for years, even after being told they didn’t have any harmful parasites. A common misdiagnosis is irritable bowel syndrome. How could this happen? The answer lies in the way most doctors test for parasites. Usually, a single stool sample is sent to a lab and tested, but as many people have learned the hard way, it’s easy for these tests not to catch what they’re looking for.

Why the usual test isn’t enough

• Some types of parasites reside in the cecum, which is a pouch-shaped area in the intestine. Whereas other parasites leave traces in stool samples, these ones won’t, thanks to this hiding spot
• Some medication can mask the evidence of living parasites up to 3 weeks after you take them. These include antibiotics, mineral oil, bismuth, and anti-malarial pills (taken if you’re travelling somewhere with malaria outbreaks). If your stool sample is tested within that 3 week time frame, your doctor can miss all signs of the parasite.
• A single “unfixed” stool sample is designed to make parasites grow large enough to analyse. This method can kill some types of parasites before they grow, physically breaking them down and making them impossible to find.
• Certain types of parasites aren’t tested for, period. The b. hominis and the d. fragilis parasites are two significant examples. The majority of medical practitioners don’t consider these to be either harmful or probable. So, even if there’s plenty of evidence for them in a stool test, that evidence simply won’t be reported by the lab.