Giardiasis link to ME/CFS? My Bolivian souvenir

Giardia Lamblia - the little protozoa who took up residence in my gut c1991

 In 1991 I relocated to Bolivia, South America. I lived and worked there for the next two years without returning to the UK until my first furlough in late 1992, after which I did not go back.


During my time there, I contracted giardiasis, and was treated in the Methodist Hospital in La Paz. American missionary doctors prescribed the standard drug to treat Giardia Lamblia, Metronidazole. 

After the short, sharp earlier stage of this intestinal disease, I found it all but impossible to return to normal functioning. I lost weight. I lost energy. I became weak. I lost my appetite. My limbs and muscles became sore and painful. I had severe headaches. I had trouble sleeping. I had a constant feeling of deep, draining fatigue. The sensation I call "walking uphill through treacle". My ears sang. My eyes found it hard to bear the light.

 This went on and on. I stayed for a prolonged period recuperating with another missionary couple in La Paz, in a spare room, away from the bustle of city life. I did not improve much, or quickly.

 In time, faced with an ultimatum from the church headquarters back home that unless I could return to my post in Sucre, a plane ride away, they would have no alternative for the sake of my own health (considering my diabetes, too, as I was unable to eat healthily by this point) but to bring me back to England, I made the excruciating journey back to Sucre.

Sucre, "La Ciudad Blanca", "The White City", where I was director of the Internado Metodista

I was little better there. Fortunately (or not!), several of the students in the Internado Metodista where I was director for the church, were studying medicine or nursing at the University of Chuquisaca in the city. There were no shortage of girls willing to try out their medical skills on this captive, weakened gringo!

I have photos of me lying in my bed at the Internado, wired up to a saline drip which was taped precariously to the wall while the med student inmates tried to help me recover and keep me hydrated. I felt like I was running a temperature much of the time, even though the climate in Sucre is pleasantly temperate, free from the extremes of La Paz and at a lower altitude.

La Paz, highest capital in the world, on the Andean Altiplano overlooked by Mount Illimani

 I did complete my time there, but my health has never fully returned. All the symptoms from that time, from the IBS-like swings into diarrhoea and constipation, to the worst ravages of profound disabling fatigue, muscle and nerve pain, cognitive dysfunction, sleep disruption, new sensitivities to pollen, alcohol and strawberries etc have dogged me on and off, by boom and bust ever since.

I don't recall the giardia protozoa having such a friendly face!

 I recovered for periods enough to count myself well, and I rejoice to remember those times when I was strong enough to travel around talking about my time in Bolivia, to train as a minister in the Methodist Church and work with churches in Southampton and latterly, Rotherham.


But things were never quite right. Three bouts of shingles in my head that left me unable to work for weeks that ran into months. Then the gradual worsening of symptoms each autumn when, on diabetic advice, I would obediently undergo the annual flu jab, meant to save me from rogue virus attack! Every time worse. Then that final collapse after the flu jab in 2005 that brought me to where I am now. Always the mystifying panoply of disabling symptoms that nobody could explain or alleviate.

I had read before in articles discussing M.E./CFS that giardia is one of the conditions implicated as a trigger.


Here today, we have this thorough study from Norway, that shows nearly half of Giardia patients report IBS and chronic fatigue symptoms three years later. Some even after 8 years.

Giardia - not my favourite parasite. Could it have triggered my M.E.?

I had to have a stool sample analysed on my return from South America in the early 90s to establish that the giardia lamblia was not nesting smugly in some coil of my ravaged colon, and I was eventually given the all clear. I was glad to hear those voracious troublesome little protozoa had taken leave of my gut.


I wonder if one day, I'll find the bunting and party-poppers actually came out too soon on that score?

Giardia - the guilty party?

 But if giardia is to blame, then I have hope that further studies may unlock a cure for me, and set me free at last.
  
Norwegian Study into Giardiasis link to IBS & Chronic Fatigue