For over the last two years, I have had lymph node swelling under arms, groin, behind knees, abdominal area. I have a constant belly bloat. No fever, ho night sweats.I have had a multitude of tests, Blood work, Ct Scan, Ultrasound, HIV, HEP test, all come back negative. After two years doctor decided to have biopsy of the lymph nodes under my arm. Pathology report came back negative for cancer. Thank god!!! But I was diagnosed with reactive lymphnoid follicular hyperplasia. Doctor said it was some kind of bacterial infection and prescribed doxycycline and a probiotic for six weeks. I am starting my second week on meds and recently noticed in my stool, that there are white worm like strings in my stool. I am hoping that this is culprate that has been giving me fits. Anyone else going through this now? My stools before very soft, with like a greenish liquid. Thanks for reading
Hi,
I would like to add to maybe help someone that I have Celiac disease, I do not eat gluten at all and have not since 2004. I also have mild diverticulosis and severe IBS. My stomach had been bloated for days and I finally went to the bathroom this morning after taking Miralax for 4 days. The last two bowel movements I have had (today and last week) both had string like substance in the stool, almost looked like a tampon string, but obviously couldn't tell the color because it had stool on it. I am wondering if this has something to do with Celiac Disease. Years ago when I was eating gluten before I was diagnosed, I would have fatty-like stools, which is common in people with Celiac. Please google it. I hope this helps.
The attitude in the United States is that parasites are not endemic here therefore we don't test for them. Since we don't test for them we don't detect them. Since we don't detect them we infer they do not exist and the circular reasoning starts again. I have had parasitic infections that are only found in Western Africa, some parts of Asia and South America and it took seeing an internal medicine doc who trained in South America to discover these critters by running the appropriate tests and looking for them himself. He wrote a book called "The Accidental Cure" which postulates that a tremendous number of misdiagnosed disease processes in the U.S. are caused by parasites that go untreated because the American medical establishment adheres to the circular reasoning pattern stated above. It never dawns on them that almost daily some of us are exposed to imported foodstuffs, agricultural products and even clothing that can harbor parasite larvae, ova or insects which harbor parasites. This is how I got a very stubborn infection with Schistoma haematobium which is known to cause bladder cancer. Despite urinating into a sterile container with a witness, seeing and feeling these worms exit and seeing several of their life cycle stages including ova, mircidiae, adults, etc., the physician at the very prominent medical institution I saw discarded the urine and prescribed a psych med. Due to the treatment delay I developed a disseminated case of parasitis and have had everything from various schistosomes to round worms, flat worms, pin worms, some species of fungal gnat larvae, and even some unidentifiable parasites. I know exactly when I was infected. Having suffered with chronic Lyme disease a number of years my immune system is tremendously compromised. I was sitting on my front porch when my partner and sister in law were planting a large container garden with tropiical plants so I would have a nice place to sit and read outside. It was a warm day and I had on a pair of shorts and a tee shirt which exposed my lumbar spine. When transplanting the tropical plants it was as if I was a beacon for insects and I got swarmed with what looked like beige mosquitoes that came from the plant soil during repotting. They made a bee line form my exposed slightly sweaty lower back and bit me very painfully dozens of times. My back actually developed a visible bruise and was quite tender. Six weeks later while at the breakfast table my friend alerted me that squirming white larvae were crawling out of my calf and when I looked the entire surface of skin on my legs was covered with tiny white bumps which eventually hatched and my legs got covered with deep, craterous lesions, some of which had visible motile white worms in them, and some lesions were as large as the cross section of a lemon. My once flawless skin looked like that of someone suffering with flesh eating bacteria. Still, physicians all thought I was a "nutcase" because as these things emerged from my skin, body fluids, etc., I made the mistake of collecting and taking samples with me and all I got was a prescription for a very dangerous anti-psychotic, ORAP. Finally I started seeing Dr. Simon Yu in St. Louis (I was flying down there every couple weeks) and he was quite disturbed by the way the medical establishment had treated me and performed the necessary tests and prescribed the necessary meds. Unfortunately, by that time my infection was in my blood, GI and urinary tracts and who knows what other organs and systeems. Because of the Lyme caused immunocompromisation and the treatment delay I am still taking rounds of antiparasitics (Albendazole, mebendazole, ivermectin, pyrantel pamoate, praziquantel, diethylcarbamazine (you have to travel outside the U.S. to get that), as well as others and various parasitic worms still persist because some of them cannot be killed in the adult form. A word of caution: DO NOT TAKE ANTIPARASITICS UNLESS YOU ARE UNDER A DOCTOR'S CARE. These are powerful and toxic drugs and in addition to affecting your liver, kidneys, heart, both the parasites and some of the drugs (mebendazole in particular) can also get into your brain, cause neurocysticercosis and if you kill these cystic parasites you can develop a case of encephalitis that results in brain damage or death. Also, a lot of these parasites harbor other pathogens in their guts which are relaeased at death and you can develop a life threatening infection which it may take too long for physicians to diagnose unless they know your are being treated for a particular parasite that has a particular pathogen in its gut. It is years later and I am still very sick and cannot rid myself of these things and at this stage all we try to do is keep the population down. They have chewed through muscle, skin and organs, cause constant discomfort and make me feel like I have a constant case of the flu. I have had various schistosomes, unidentifiable protozoan infections, microfilarial infections which resulted in bilateral deep vein thromboses, lymph stasis and pulmonary emboli (which I somehow survived despite being given a 70% chance of not surviving), what looked like elephantiasis of the legs (my toes would not even touch the floor and my muscular legs were so swollen I had to wear pants with a 4" larger waist. Finally I saw Dr. Yu and he helped me tremendously but cyclical infections will probably always be a part of my life now as a result of the arrogance of physicians. All I can say is if you have persisting symptoms or see things swimming in the bowel after a BM when there is no water current and everything else is standing still, look up and call Dr. Yu. He is not a quack and has an excellent reputation and is a fantastic physician and treats patients with compassion, dignity and respect. As a result of this I went from being a top condiition athlete who swam 3,000-4,500 meters 5x a week, biked 30-40 miles 3-4x a week, inline skated 15-20 miles 2-3x a week and ran a very successful biz, to being pretty much bed-ridden. This could have been avoided had the physicians at the prestigious academic hospital where I sought treatment believed me and treated me early on instead of diagnosing me a psychiatric illness without a single test for an infectious process. They did not even perform a physical exam. Two of the institutions involved were the the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the University of Maryland hospital would not even give me an appointment and wrote defamatory comments about me when I tried to schedule an appointment with their tropical medicine department from a referral made by another physician who had seen me and and agreed I had a parasitic infection but did not know how to treat. The University physicians included me in their emails and cllassified me as a nut and the physician who was supposed to see me thanked her attending physician for refusing me an appointment because University had access to my electronic medical record and she assumed I was crazy. I received this cruel banter between them. I attached these messages to the CEO of the hospital who chastised me for reading email not intended for me (despite being delivered to my my email address) and filed a formal complaint with the Maryland State Board of professional licensing and they saw no wrongdoing. Think the system is corrupt? Since Hopkins is a world class hospital which is a household name I could not find an attorney in my city that was willing to go up against them. In addition to losing my home, my car, all the additional medical expenses forced me to liquidate assets and I lost 2/3 of my retirement. What was going to be a very comfortable retirement will now likely be living on a shoestring outsid the U.S. because I cannot afford to retire here. Gastroenterologists, dermatologists, hematologists, internists, urologists, etc. are not likely to believe you even if you go to an appointment with a squirming worm living in a lesion in your leg (this happened to me - the dermatologist did not even perform a perfunctory exam before prescribing an anti-psychotic and numerous psychiatrists and psychologists have declared mentally competent. Sorry to have gone on so long but if you have symptoms of a parasitic infection it is imperative you get prompt medical attention and whatever you do, DO NOT SEE AN INTERNAL MEDICINE PHYSICIAN that is a member of the I.D.S.A. (Infectious Disease Society of America). Call Dr. Simon Yu's office in St. Louis, MO., and find a way to scrape together the money to see him. It might just save your life or prevent it from becoming a living hell like mine has. Good luck to all of you and I hope you do not suffer the indignity I have, as well as the extensive damage to your bodies.
Pls advise anyone else who are facing similar symptoms.