Ingesting Parasitic Worm Could Alleviate Ulcerative Colitis – In 2004, he stepped off a plane from the United States to Thailand with a terrible stomach problem. He traveled thousands of miles for worms, parasitic worms whose eggs he intended to swallow by the thousands
This month, the man’s experience treating himself with parasitic worms was published in a medical journal. The man, who wants to protect his privacy, and preferred to be called as “the patient”, was 28 when he started having bloody bowel movements. He was having 10-15 bloody bowel movements a day.
Before he engaged himself with the treatment of parasitic worms, he was given high doses of steroids, but because of severe side effects, he could take only for limited periods of time. Soon, he became so sick that he had to quit his job.
Meanwhile, the patient had browsed on the internet and found an article in a medical journal by Dr. Joel Weinstock, chief of gastroenterology at Tufts University Medical School, which showed some ulcerative colitis patients found relief after ingesting the trichuris suis worm, a parasite that lives in the intestines of pigs.
His physician, who’s specialized in gastroenterology, had told the man that his idea was crazy. Infesting himself with parasitic worms wouldn’t do anything to help his ulcerative colitis, and in fact could make him very sick. If he pursued with this course of treatment, the doctor would have to refuse to treat him.
Because he was so eager to try the treatment, he contacted Weinstock to ask him to treat him with worms, but Weinstock said no, because it wasn’t approved for general use by the Food and Drug Administration and could only be done experimentally. Many doctors have refused him.
With his determination, he continued to contact researchers in various developing countries to ask if they could help him get his hands on some eggs. Luckily, the researcher in Thailand was particularly helpful.
The doctor in Thailand extracted roundworm eggs from the stool of an 11-year-old infected girl. She gave the trichuris trichiura eggs to the patient, but he now faced another hurdle. The eggs needed to be cleaned in case the girl had hepatitis or some other infectious disease, and the eggs needed to mature for them to be helpful. It was up to him to clean the eggs and grow them in a process called “embryonation.”
He managed to grow the eggs. Then he ingested the first dose of 500 eggs and then another of 1,000. The worms could live in his intestinal track for many years.
Three months later, he had fewer bloody bowel movements, and soon, none at all. His bowel movements were normal. When his ulcerative colitis would flare up again, he’d extract eggs from his own stool, clean, embryonate and ingest them. Again, his symptoms would go away.
The worms seemed to be having this beneficial effect. After ingestion, he had an abundance of cells that produce a protein called interleukin-22, which is important in healing the mucosal lining of the intestines. The worms were able to restore mucus production in his gut.
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