The client has a very severe insomnia and anxiety for at least 40 years and no gut symptoms. He has a stool test that came back with insufficiency dysbiosis and a few Blastocystis hominis in his three samples. Would you treat Blasto, or is treating the insufficiency dysbiosis enough?

Dr. Amy Nett:  Yeah, great question. He has no gut symptoms, but he does have severe insomnia and anxiety. Yes I would treat, I would do, I mean the insufficiency dysbiosis alone, sometimes I’ll do prebiotics, probiotics, do they tolerate it well? Is that enough? But sometimes with insufficiency dysbiosis I’ll do 30 days at an antimicrobial protocol and then move into treatment. But if you have a patient, and I would also look at what’s his cortisol rhythm looking like because if you do other testing and it looks like cortisol rhythm is fine, metals aren’t an issue, you can’t find anything else, then I might blame the Blastocystis. The problem is we just don’t know. So if he’s open to it, I would probably do 30 to 60 days of the herbal antimicrobial protocol. Have him taking prebiotics and probiotics during that treatment. Because you’ll want to explain that you have low levels of beneficial bacteria. I don’t want to lower them any more, so I want you taking prebiotics, really nourish the healthy gut microbiome. But I do think that there’s a strong brain-gut access and gut issues may be causing this. And it’s possible that this Blasto is causing it. So, yeah, I would probably do 30 to 60 days if he’s up for it. And just explain your reasoning that we don’t always know whether Blasto is contributing, but if there are symptoms and really almost any symptoms, probably worth treating because we just don’t know. And some patients with few Blasto, it really is a problem.