In the article listed above, the story surrounds a man of 28 years old, who up until a few years ago, was having terrible, terrible bowel movements. About 10-15 times a day it would happen, usually with a lot of blood accompanying the movement. Having tried various treatments recommended by his doctor at the time, the man still continued to suffer. He tried steroids, which had negative side effects, and other kinds of treatments, none of which seemed to work. When his doctor gave him a choice of a specialized kind of surgery for his condition, you would think the man would be ecstatic. However, that wasn't the case. If he did have the surgery, there would only be a 50% chance of it working, and evening more so, he would be more at risk for cancer later on in life. If it happened the surgery didn't work, he would have to have his colon removed, and would basically being going to the bathroom in a bag for the rest of his life.
Of course, these options were far from appealing and healing the poor man's health condition. So he looked into other possible ways to heal himself. He found an article online in a medical journal about a person with colon problems as well, who had resolved his conflicts through the consumption of trichuris suis worm, a parasite that lives in the intestines of pigs. He tried to persuade a variety of different doctors to inject these parasites into him, which all of them refused, as there was no scientific back up behind the study, and according to them, would probably only worsen his already bad condition. He was stubborn though, and was adamant about not going under the knife with what could be terribly disastrous results.
So he traveled from USA to Thailand all on his own, where he came into contact with an 11 year old girl who had the parasites living inside of her. After having used the bathroom, he collected the parasite's eggs from her feces, cleansed them, then some how managed to raise them over time in an environment, which he referred to as "embryonation." The worms did grow over time, and once reaching their full form, he ingested the great number of 1,000 parasitic worms. While at first they didn't do much, quickly over time his bloody bowel movements began to lower, then disappeared all together. He didn't feel much pain otherwise, and when faced with having a bloody bowel movement again, he just resolved to consuming more of the warms.
After having a positive experience from the worms, he found a man named Loke to report his experience. Though at first reluctant, Loke became fascinated by what drove this man to do what he did, and reported about the man and his worms eventually. Though there was an outcry from the medical community, believing the man was promoting unsafe means to healing through parasitic worms, the man quickly defended himself by claiming he didn't wish for others to do as he did as much as he just wanted to report his bizarre yet positive experience. Perhaps in the future more scientific study will be done on parasitic worms and what they could do to benefit human medical conditions.
I definitely think more research should be done before people should start trying out parasitic worms as a treatment. Though this man's experience was positive, what if others is not? It's important to keep in mind all options though, like this man did. Hopefully in the future we'll find out more about the benefits, risks and negatives to how parasites can influence humans in the medical field.
So my questions are:
If you were faced with the option of surgery (with only the 50% of it working and a higher risk for cancer, or if it didn't work you would have to go to the bathroom in a bag for the rest of your life) or eating parasitic worms, which would you choose?
Do you think the man was promoting the use of parasitic worms, why or why not?
What could be the potential results of people reading/hearing about healing through parasitic worms?
Do you think more should be done on parasitic worm research before it is embraced as a future medical treatment?
i think that this artical is very interresting because i know that if i had this problem I would definatly not have the guts to try to slove it on my own. I would listen and do whatever the doctors told me to. I agree that more research should be done with parasitic study because if it works for 1 person it could help many others in need. If I was to have the choice of getting the surgury I probably would do it because I feel that that is what the doctor would do and I have a hard time not listening to a doctor. The furthur research of parasites as a medical soloution is definatly needed for it to be actually used as a form of healing, but using these worms could help many peoples problems and when used correctly it could become a major form of relief.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Stephanie, I definitely wouldn't have gone to such lengths to find a solution for this very interesting problem. More research should be done on parasitic medical treatments; maybe one could cure cancer in the future.
ReplyDeleteI believe the man was promoting the use of parasitic worms because it obviously worked for him and might work for others too. He was also promoting the use of worms because he found Loke who recorded his experience.
A potential result of people reading and hearing about healing through parasitic worms would be uninformed people trying to cure symptoms with worms that can truly harm animals and humans. However, another potential outcome would be less people with the same symptoms as the man talked about in the article.
This is a really interesting article and is defiantly worth while to continue research on them. He got them an odd way but it is okay now because he used it to his advantage. I would eat the parasitic worms even though they weren't proven to work because I would rather not have cancer. I do not think the man was promoting the use of worms because he did not tell people to use them he just wanted to report it. I think if other people had the same condition they would do it. Yes more should be done because there could be really bad side affects that no one knows about.
ReplyDeleteThe article is very interesting, however I find it strange for someone not to listen to the expertise of doctors. If it were I who would have to chose between the worms and the surgery, I would most definitely take the surgery. I would take the surgery because I can't help but trust doctors. I don't think the man was trying to promote the usage of worms, I believe he was just taking a risk of his life to make himself better. More research on this subject should happen because it is a cure that has been so far proven to work.
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