A 23-year-old with severe allergies, loss of oral tolerance, Lyme, mold, and biotoxins. A question about helminthic therapy, which I’ve used myself in the past, and I’ve seen patients who use as well.

Chris Kresser:  There are different ways to do this. There is the trichuris suis, or TSO, which is the pig whipworm. Then there is human whipworm using hookworm, Necator americanus. There is varying research supporting both of those. Right now, there is no—as far as I know unless anything has changed, there is no sort of official way to do hookworm therapy. People go down to Mexico to clinics there. They can do it ordering them online. Then the trichuris suis, I’m not sure about the availability of that either at this point. It’s one of these things where I’ve seen some patients and heard through colleagues that it just can be a miracle cure, and people with severe allergies and other GH2-dominant conditions, atopic conditions, just have a remarkable improvement. Then I’ve heard of people who don’t get better at all, and then I’ve heard of people who actually get worse. It’s definitely a last resort, I think. I would probably exhaust almost all other options first, not because I think there is any long-term risk of infection. The anthelmintics are pretty effective, so if it’s not working, you can take one of those and usually clear the infection pretty easily. Because people who have really dysregulated immune systems are often just super-sensitive, and sometimes when they try something and it doesn’t work, it sets them back for a really long time. It’s not just like they try it, and it doesn’t work, and then they go right back to baseline. It could take them months to get back to baseline. That’s just something to consider.