That's one way to cure an upset stomach
A gruesome story about someone who suffered from ulcerative colitis and found an unusual cure.
From
CNN/Health:
Man finds extreme healing eating parasitic worms
One day in 2004, a 29-year-old man with a terrible stomach problem stepped off a plane from the United States in Thailand. He wasn't there for the sights, or the food, or the beaches. He had traveled thousands of miles for worms -- parasitic worms whose eggs he intended to swallow by the thousands.
His doctor back home had told him his idea was crazy, that infesting himself with parasitic worms wouldn't do anything to help his ulcerative colitis, and in fact could make him very sick. The gastroenterologist had told the man if he pursued this course of treatment, he would refuse to be his doctor anymore.
"You'll be on your own," the man remembers the doctor telling him.
Indeed, he was on his own, standing in the office of a Thai doctor, asking her to pick the worm eggs out of an 11-year-old girl's stool.
It does make sense on a certain level -- the worms irritate part of the bodies defenses and the heightened defense minimizes the colitis.
Of course, now all sorts of health ninnies are going to get infected even though their ailments are not what this guy had. They will feel funny and think that they are cured. The placebo effect is strong with some people...
Posted by DaveH at December 15, 2010 7:48 PM