Blasto with few symptoms and a GI Test showing low levels

[nodoctor15]

A few years ago in a GI Effects GI Test, I came up positive for Blastocystis Hominis aka Blasto. I also had off the charts Candida Albicans overgrowth. At that point, I had frequent sore throats, needed lots of sleep, a little on edge, but no horrible symptoms. I cut all added sugar, caffeine, alcohol, and most gluten and took supplements including:

Herbals: Black Walnut shells, garlic, Berberine, Oregano Oil, Caprylic Acid, Cat's claw extract, Gymnema Silvestre, Biocidin.

Colloidal Silver in Aloe juice

GI Revive for leaky gut.

Anti-biotic: Nitazoxinide.

Probiotics: Saccharomyces boulardii and 4 others.

Treatments: About 10 Fecal Transplants from a confirmed healthy donor (seriously)

And other stuff.

I know many people on here have very harsh symptoms, so from that standpoint, I am fortune. I have almost no symptoms. (Although I am on a moderate HRT regiment--daily transdermal testosterone cypionate to get me into the "normal" range which helps libido, mood, and physique)

My question is this: now I have even fewer symptoms, but my GI test still comes back with low levels of Blasto. Should I continue my marathon of treatments, do another painful anti-biotic regiment? Or just figure I have it in check and run with it.

I realize there may not be a right answer, but there seem to be some sharp informed folks on this forum, so I'd love your opinions. Thank you in advance.

 

[Hutan]

@nodoctor15, my son and daughter tested positive to blastocystis among other things even after treatment. Both have/had ME.

Blastocystis is not necessarily pathogenic. There have been studies done where populations have a very high incidence of blastocystis and yet are asymptomatic. Apparently there are a number of strains of blastocystis, some of which are or can be pathogenic and some which don't seem to be. Genetic testing of the strains shows that actually the genetic differences between strains are as big or even bigger as between species of other similar organisms. So, it's not surprising that the different strains have different effects on us.

It is possible to get the strain of your blastocystis identified but you probably will have to look hard for a lab that can do that.

So, I think, first thing would be to try to get the strain of your blastocystis identified and then read up on what that means. If you and your blastocystis are living in happy symbiosis, perhaps you can just leave it alone.

I never tested positive to blastocystis but have been exposed to more dodgy unhygenic food and water than my children in my travels so it seemed likely that I had blastocystis too. Paromomycin was what seemed to help in the end; it seemed to put an end to some unpleasant GI issues although I'm not sure what, if anything it actually killed.

The following is from a nice blog on Blastocystis.
http://www.blastocystis.net

Many species of Blastocystis have been acknowledged, of which at least 9 have been found in humans. Such species are currently termed "subtypes" (STs). ST1, ST2, ST3 and ST4 are common in Europe. While ST1, ST2, and ST3 appear to have equal prevalences in patients with diarrhoea and healthy individuals, ST4 appears to be epidemiologically linked to diarrhoea and/or chronic conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

There is no known efficient eradication strategy for Blastocystis. Although metronidazole is often prescribed for Blastocystis infections, there is conflicting reports on its efficacy. Even in combination with a luminal agent, such as paromomycin, Blastocystis eradication cannot be guaranteed.

 

[Hutan]

More from that blog.

it was very interesting to note the article by Paramsothy et al. on donor recruitment for faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT; never heard of this? Watch the video below to learn more), recently appearing in the journal Inflammatory Bowel Disease. The study is interesting because it shows that most FMT donors are seemingly ineligible due to a variety of reasons, including colonisation by intestinal parasites such as Blastocystis... Given emerging data suggesting that Blastocystis is more common in healthy invididuals than in patients with gastrointestinal disease, the question remains whether Blastocystis-positivity should be a limiting factor for stool donation?

Cotter mentioned that Blastocystis has been subject to bad science. This may be due to a number of reasons. When developing hypotheses, we have a tendency of opting for dichotomous outcomes - either it is this or that, - maybe that's the very nature of hypotheses. If the clinical significance of Blastocystis is dependent on a number of different things such as co-colonising microbes (cross-talk), differences in host immunity response, Blastocystis subtype, and host diet for instance, then the true tapestry of physiological/biological/clinical mechanisms is likely to be extremely difficult to uncover.

 

[nodoctor15]

Thank you. Very helpful information. I've looked for a lab that can analyze my blasto to decide what strain it is without success. I've emailed the folks here to request an analysis of my strain:

http://www.ssi.dk/English/RandD/Res...n Control/The Laboratory of Parasitology.aspx

And will see what they say. I'll also search for a lab in the US. There does appear to be a lot of misinformation, and of course, many "experts" saying blasto is always a problem and should be addressed aggressively. I'll make a note to update this thread as I find out more, and thanks again!

I will say, once I figured out my system the fecal microbiota transplant was very easy and I suspect has a significantly positive impact. Placebo effect possible of course, but I felt a quick and notable improvement.

 

[Hip]

As @Hutan says, not all strains of Blastocystis hominis are pathogenic. However, if you want to try to eradicate your Blasto to see if your symptoms improve, you might want to try Blastocystis hominis protocols that have proven success rates (determined in published studies).

Depending on the protocol, the elimination success rate can be anywhere from 60% to 100% successful.

See this post for a list of proven Blastocystis hominis treatment protocols.

 

[nodoctor15]

Thanks so much. I have seen that post and it's a very good post. I'm not sure, but that may have even been the post that encouraged me to go with Saccharomyces Boulardii. I do generally have an aversion to killing stuff that won't harm me, so my hope was to confirm if my blasto was pathogenic before downing more anti-biotics

I believe my strain is pathogenic based on my need for HRT (Cypionate and hcg) and based on the fact that my GI tests went from "lots of Blasto" to "small amount of blasto" or something similar stated in the lab results, and my symptoms went down between those two labs. That being said, my benefits may have been from reduction of extreme candida albicans overgrowth(which also was fairly asymptomatic for me), or simply from cutting added sugar, alcohol, caffeine and gluten from my diet (which would probably improve anyone's health regardless of parasites)