Day 8 - Worm Wrestling & Side Effects

It was my 27 birthday this week and in great situational irony I participated in my first 'Worm Wrestling' over the weekend at a party out in Northern California. Basically two people get into mummy sleeping bags, bow and then try to shimmy each other off a mattress. It's hilarious.

I'm hoping to get that fabled "bump" but so far feel that a lot of my allergy/asthmas and psorasis symptoms are just in overdrive this past week.

After the first three days the itching on my arm stopped. I noticed a shortness of breath the first couple days that weren't pronounced but I usually have asthmas only when exercising vigorously.

One week later and I feel like I'm more agitated overall. It could (likely) be due to the Spring pollen blooms that are happening around Northern California now and my seasonal allergies going haywire which happens this time of year. However, I've also experienced more frequent heart burn which I only rarely got before and some lower stomach cramps (not too severe). Another frustrating occurrence is my right eyelid has swelled up. I get psorasis on my eyelids and a few months ago it swelled up like this as well. I'm not sure the cause of the swelling unfortunately and if it doesn't go away in the next few days will go to a specialist.

Day 2: Itching and the Power of Positive Thinking

It's been just over 24 hours since I applied 10 NA and the itching has been pretty persistent, but that's the only side effect I've noticed.

While I don't know how this experiment will turn out, I can say that today I feel more in control of my health than I have in a while. For the last year I've been demoralized as more plaques have shown up on my stomach, an area I've never had plaques before. Now I feel empowered and on a healing journey. I am focusing on a mantra of sorts: 'these little worms are my friends and will help me heal and clear my skin'. This positive thinking is helping already to feel more energy today and sharing my journey with friends, many of whom are fascinated is also boosting my morale.

26 hours after inoculation

Day 1: Going down the Wormhole

I've gone down the wormhole now! I have just inoculated myself with 10 Necator Americanus (NA) hookworms that I bought online for $200USD using Bitcoin with the intention of treating plaque psorasis and allergies. After conversing with several providers I chose one that had good reviews and were very professional and responsive. Lastly, they ship to the US which is a convenience lifesaver. (Contact me directly if you want more information.)

My heart was beating quite fast as I unwrapped the package. I said a little prayer (can't hurt) and followed the instructions and placed it on my shoulder. About 12 minutes later it started itching from the larvae penetrating my skin, but let's be real, having suffered from plaque psorasis for 10 years now I'm already used to a burning itching sensation on my arms and legs. I'm intrigued about what's to come and will be documenting my experience and testing how/if my microbiomes changes along the way using a home UBiome test ($220 USD).

I chose to start with 10 NA as a low-medium range dose. Many people choose 25 right off the bat but I was encouraged with results that showed 5-10 NA can have the same benefits without some of the gastrointestinal side effects.



While my girlfriend and some other people in my life find this whole thing concerning, I am fascinated with the potential. I decided to go ahead with helminthic therapy after trying UV therapy and using topicals for decades with little control of the plaques. After more than seven months of careful research on helminthic therapy while weighing the potential side effects and cost of this type of experimental therapy (e.g stomach ache, heartburn) against using pharmaceutical biologic drugs (like Humira) and its side effects (e.g headache, cancer) and cost.

The fact these biologic drugs have only been around just over decade and we don't really know what the lifetime side effects of them are versus having a small colony of 10 NA which have been living in humans for thousands of years seems to be a saner approach.

Also, fuck Big Pharma. Humira is one of the most profitable drugs of all time  with each patient costing over $20,000 per year to treat! If helminthic therapy for me is successful and I can treat psorasis instead with a few hundred dollars (out of my own pocket) then I demand my insurance company's accounts payable department to write me a personal letter thanking me!

Down the Rabbit Wormhole with some "Old Friends" 

I'm 27 years old with an Ashkenazi Jewish background (like 98% according to 23andMe), and besides environmental allergies and plaque psorasis have been quite healthy. I run, bike, dance, and do yoga at least 4-5 times per week. I love to travel to developing countries and have just returned from a four month trip around Southeast Asia this past year. Frankly just eating street food off a bike-trolly in Vietnam probably has as much risk of contamination as this well packaged

Plaque psorasis has gotten worse over the last 10 years and has been popping up on more parts of my body causing physical and and emotional discomfort. That said I have never wanted to mess with my immune system using pharmaceutical immunosuppressant drugs designed to treat psorasis as the side effects are too long to list here.

Last year I read Moises Velasquez-Manoff's An Epidemic of Absence: A New Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases and spent countless hours reading the helminthic wiki, individual blogs, documentaries I slowly became convinced that this was worth trying based on the "old friend" hypothesis. 

I now embark on this journey and will be blogging every week or so as my own record and I hope you learn something too!

Microbiome Fever

I've always been fascinated with the fact that we have 10X more microbes living in us than cells. Each of us is a walking ecosystem that is not separate from our environment, this is called our microbiome. This concept has radically altered how I see "my" body as not a continuous individual but a host to communities of microbiota that help regulate different aspects of my health and even mood.  We are the sum total of our human genes and the genes of millions of other lifeforms that have lived within the human microbiome for millennia.

I work in the field of solar energy and have been fighting climate change since I graduated from UC Berkeley in 2013. I am fascinated (and horrified) how rapidly our environment is changing and becoming more inflamed around us. It wasn't until I was 26 that I started turning my gaze inward to look at how my own microbiome was suffering from a lack of balance and how that could be related to psorasis, allergies, and asthma. 

Reducing our microbiome with antibiotics 

Advances in modern medicine have allowed us to understand how to treat illnesses caused by bacteria and viruses, and the miracle of antibiotics has extended lifespans and reduced suffering around the world. But we live now in an age where antibiotics are popped like candy, and growing up I took way more antibiotics than I care to think about in a quest for a quick fix.

My well-meaning mother took me to a dermatologist when I was in 7th grade and had bad facial acne who prescribed me antibiotics (Tetracyclines) over a year long period to ward it off.. I also had bad allergies and asthma growing up (more on this later) and went to an ENT (many times) who would prescribe me azithromycin and Amoxicillin to combat recurring sinusitis infections.

Basically growing up my immune system was overacting and then my microbiome was pummeled again and again with doses of heavy antibiotics. Ugh!

Plaque psoriasis and the microbiome 

Plaque psorasis started appearing when I was about 18 years old with a small patch on my scalp at the hairline. It's progressed since then to large patches on my legs and thighs, with smaller patches on my back and stomach. The absolute worst place it appears though is on my eye lids causing me to look high all the time unless I apply topical steroids on my eye lids which I'm not comfortable with long term.

I was interested to learn early on it was an autoimmune disease and while its definitely genetically passed down, it was probably triggered and worsened due to environmental conditions outside and inside of my body. I'm sure 10+ years of abusing antibiotics coupled with a Western diet high in sugars, carbohydrates, and fats were part of the problem. (I've never had a weight issue and have always considered myself to be a "healthy" eater. That said, I enjoy In N' Out every now and again.)

The National Psoriasis foundation is posting more on the frontier of the microbiome and its regulation in treating psoriasis. People are eating certain diets and avoiding inflammatory foods, taking probiotics, and even experimenting in helminthic therapy.

Baseline with topical steroid treatment - April 4, 2018

Not too fun! 

 My Microbiome Baseline - UBiome 

Last year I decided to take a snap shot of my microbiome using UBiome Explorer test. A consumer-friendly $89 test that takes a high level sample of my microbiome. 

Throughout this process of healing myself using helminths and dieting I will be conducting a time trail test over the next three months using UBiome's services. 

Here's some of the results from last year: