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Thoughts on routine preventive course of anti-parasitics?


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With all the hype (mostly from antivaxers) about Ivermectin, how safe it is and how great it is... I starting to wonder how common parasites are in Americans and would it be a good idea to occasionally take anti-parasitics just as a precaution (nothing to do with covid mind you)?  After doing some research, it seems likely that MILLIONS of Americans have parasites, even the CDC was warning about this several years ago: CDC warns of common parasites plaguing millions in U.S.

Even our very own Mike Lustgarten wrote a book sort of related to this: Microbial Burden: A Major Cause Of Aging And Age-Related Disease

I know of a few people that have been formally diagnosed with "worms".  But many people do not even know they are infected, and yet parasites can seriously damage one's health over time.  I'm also guessing people who eat massive amounts of fruit and vegetables and more "uncooked" foods than average might be even more susceptible to parasites.  Many pets and farm animals are regularly treated with anti-parasitics.  So why aren't humans?  The more I thought about it, the odder it seemed.

As the Ivermectin proponents point out, the medicine has a very long history of use in countless mammals including humans and has an extremely good safety profile when taken at the recommended dosage (200 μg/kg for most mammals including humans, but up to 300 μg/kg for certain indications).

Coincidentally, recently my cats started having digestive tract problems.  I thought maybe it was the food.  But after trying 4 different brands, nothing was helping.  I tried a couple other things, but nothing resolved the issue.  After reading about Ivermectin being used in cats, I decided to give that a try, I just ordered the "horse paste" from Amazon and carefully measured out the dosage using a gem scale (4.864mg of the paste per lb of body weight).  Within 4-5 hours the cats were showing unusual energy, running around, playing, jumping up on things, batting at things, jumping into my lap, purring, I haven't seen them this active since they were kittens.  That carried over in the days that followed, and the digestive issues seem to have disappeared.

Then I got to thinking, half of the reviews (or more) on Amazon are from humans taking this stuff, and it worked great on the cats, so... haha.  I decided it take a dose at the recommended rate for humans which is pretty much the same dosage for all mammals (200 μg/kg or 4.864mg of the paste per lb of weight) again carefully measured out on a gem scale.  I mixed it with a fatty meal as was recommended.  Now I don't want to over sell it or anything, it could certainly just be psychosomatic, but I swear to you, I felt pretty darn amazing after taking that stuff, I've had more energy in the last few days than I've had in a long time and just feel a lot better.  I had also been having various digestive tract issues.  Maybe the cats gave me some parasites?  Or maybe I gave the cats my parasites?  Who knows.  All I can say is that this is an interesting idea, and I am now seriously considering taking a course of this once a year.

What do you guys think? Am I nuts?

 

 

 

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OK, but in all seriousness, how many of you regularly go to their doctor and say "hey Doc, can you get out your microscope and take a look at my stool?".   I'm sure if I just used my teledoc and told him/her I wanted some Ivermectin for parasite prevention I'd get it though. 

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Gordo, I'm being serious, it's about time for me to have my stools checked for concealed blood (a possible consequence of cancer) and I might as well request a search for the most common parasites, again, yours was a good reminder. 

Edited by mccoy
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Just seems like a hassle and probably costly and unreliable to have the stool examined, they could easily miss something and I'm not even sure you can always find evidence of parasites in a stool sample or dentify them. I have a good microscope and have looked at my blood but not stool. 

Here’s an interesting article I found on  nature's website :

Crump, A. Ivermectin: enigmatic multifaceted ‘wonder’ drug continues to surprise and exceed expectations. J Antibiot 70, 495–505 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ja.2017.11

As per that article it's already being given as an annual preventive to humans living in tropical areas (millions of people). Interestingly they haven't seen a build up of treatment resistant parasites in humans. 

Although it could mess with one's gut microbiome based on this study of tigers: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29596832/

Edited by Gordo
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