Hi RosieBee,
I posted on another thread where parasites were discussed. Thought you might find some of the discussion on that thread to be interesting. The following is a link to my post:
Pumpkin Seeds for Tapeworms
A lot of people think it's good to do periodic parasite cleanses without necessarily doing the testing first. Not sure whether that would cover all contingencies, but it seems it might be more reliable than depending on current diagnostic testing that apparently often misses these infections.
Wayne
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Here's My Post From That Thread
Lisa, I've been meaning to get back to you regarding your tapeworm experience. I grew up with a story about how my grandfather had gotten rid of a tapeworm using pumpkin seeds. After I read your own account, I did a search of "Pumpkin Seeds for Tapeworms", and came up with links to several medical journals dating back to the mid-1850's. Below is just a handful of those links:
Northwestern medical and surgical journal, Volume 12
Boston medical and surgical journal, Volumes 46-47
The New York medical times, Volume 3
Medical brief, Volume 7
Eclectic medical journal, Volume 36
Each article seems to have a slightly different variation on the pumpkin seed protocol, but they all seemed to be equally effective. As I remember, it appears that pumpkin seeds don't kill the tapeworm per se, but temporarily paralyzes it. When this happens, it is not able to cling to the intestinal wall, and is fairly easily flushed out with a kind of purge, such as castor oil or epsom salts.
In short, given how easy it is to pick up a tapeworm, and how difficult it is to get a positive diagnostic test for it, it sounds to me like an occasional pumpkin seed remedy for possible tapeworms would make a lot of sense. You can do the pumpkin seeds on an empty stomach first thing in the morning, and do a purge a couple hours later. Apparently, pumpkin seeds are used extensively in China for all kinds of different parasites. It's on my agenda to give it a try. Sounds benign enough, even for my sensitive system.
Wayne