In my experience, autoimmune diseases in general frequently have an infection connection. Gut infections, in particular, are extremely common autoimmunity triggers. Are there other factors? Absolutely, but infections are incredibly common, can be easily tested for, and improvements often follow from infection eradication even if other factors are still contributing. In the case of autoimmune thyroid diseases (Grave’s and Hashimoto’s — the most common causes of hyper- and hypothyroidism, respectively), some of the most well-explored infectious triggers in the medical literature are H. pylori and Yersinia enterocolitica. H. pylori infection is around 5x more common in those with Hashimoto’s than those without, and the prevalence of antibodies to Yersinia are 14-fold higher in those with Hashimoto’s than those without.
But there are other infections that can also contribute. I see parasites show up on lab testing more often than not, and they often seem to be driving the autoimmune process. One parasite that is gaining increasing notoriety is a protozoan called Blastocystis hominis (“Blasto”). Blasto is one of the most common infections that I see. For a long time it was thought to be completely harmless, but in recent times has been implicated with various complaints like Irritable Bowel Syndrome, hives, and reactive arthritis, and recently Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.
Yet another infection that I see frequently is Endolimax nana, an amoebozoa (a type of parasite) that is widely considered to be non-pathogenic and unworthy of treatment. It has started showing up recently in the medical literature in connection with gastrointestinal complaints, but the overall consensus at this point is that it isn’t that big of a deal. But I would have to disagree. It might not be as virulent as some of the other infections, but in my experience, it seems to be frequently associated with low-grade, chronic complaints. I like to keep a list of symptoms that my clients present with in association with whatever infection they end up having. Of those infected with Endolimax, I could list the following symptoms/conditions:
–arthritis pain
–bloating
–constipation (sometimes alternating with diarrhea)
–GERD/LPR
–fatigue
–muscle pain
–chronic vaginitis
–psoriasis
–eczema
–urticaria (hives)
–hypothyroidism/Hashimoto’s
That list isn’t exhaustive, but it is pretty common. Of course, I’m not suggesting that everything listed above was soley the result of this one infection. Sometimes Endolimax is present with other infections, such as Candida or SIBO or another bacteria/parasite. In these cases, it’s possible that the symptom reduction is due just as much or more to the reduction of yeast and bacteria as it is to the elimination of the parasite. But in any case, in many instances, these conditions did improve or fully reverse after eradicating the Endolimax. So whenever I see it come back on a test, my recommendation is to eradicate it. And fortunately, it is typically a very easy parasite to get rid of with the proper protocol.
A quick and illustrative example:
A 60-year-old man came to me with a previous diagnosis of hypothyroidism and years-long psoriasis (at least 20 years). TSH was elevated out of range (4.59), and free T3 and free T4 were low-normal. Here you can see that free T3, for example, was only at 8% of the reference range:
We decided to check for gastrointestinal infections, and Endolimax nana came back on the test results:
We held off on addressing the thyroid directly and just decided to address the infection first to see if that might be a contributing factor.
The Endolimax was cleared after my botanical eradication protocol. We let a little time go by, and then ran thyroid labs again. Things were now looking strikingly different. TSH had dropped dramatically (<1), free T4 was now at 82% of the reference range, and free T3 had increased from 8% of the range to 63%! You can see the follow-up free T3 (triiodothyronine) results here:
Moreover, his chronic 20-year psoriasis went into remission.
Not bad for eradicating an “inconsequential” parasite, wouldn’t you say?
Recent Comments