My First Full Moon Challenge

My journey with parasites began about 7 years ago when I first began my Nutrition Response Testing program. I didn’t know that they could have been to blame for my ongoing cystic acne, my sweets cravings, bloating, or my lifelong habit (until recently) of grinding my teeth at night.

I had no idea that they are opportunists, hanging out in our microbiome, where we have created a cozy environment where they can rent real estate. Like many of you, I thought we pick up parasites from traveling to Mexico or China. Who would have thought that walking barefoot, drinking water, having pets, or eating produce, fish, or meat could result in us becoming a host? Or that those inhabitants avoid most eviction notices we issue them.

Many of the symptoms I had experienced in my life can be attributed to my diet for certain. However, I have seen significant change in my health recently since the visual evacuation of these bugs.

From skin irritations to digestive concerns and from anxiety to insomnia and nightmares, this immune challenge is particularly obnoxious. The Center for Disease Control states 80% of the U.S. population suffers from the effects of parasites. Now, I do not treat, diagnose, or prescribe, though I assert that we all have parasites, and my theory is that we can co-exist with this challenge in our body until we become compromised by food (think: standard American diet) or stress (think: how we live our daily lives). From there enters a symptom picture like none other, or a severe exacerbation of an ongoing concern — one that no provider has ever found them relief over.

My own journey with parasites became much more prevalent during the four year journey of my son Odin not sleeping through the night. Picture this: I had tested for parasites years ago, got them under control while experiencing better health than I ever had in my life. In September of 2014, I experienced my FIFTH miscarriage. Within a month of clearing the toxicity I believe was the cause of this one, and potentially my other four as well, I once again tested for parasites.

My Story: Pregnancy, Baby, and Parasite Challenges

The funny thing is this was during my Intermediate Nutrition Response Testing training, and I was the demo. I had just tested for parasites and I was watching her work with my body to find the appropriate antidote for the tested immune challenge, and my body was throwing off the things it would do if it were pregnant (instead of accepting them). The instructor looked at me, and whispered out of the corner of her mouth (in front of the whole class) “are you pregnant?” Having just experienced a loss and the subsequent throwing in of the towel on having another baby, I laughed it off and said, “no, it’s been a tough month”, thinking my body was “just” stressed or something.

Turns out I was 4 weeks pregnant with Odin. And my body wouldn’t accept any of the typical supplements or approaches for handling parasites, so she built around it, supporting my gut the best she could. I had an incredible pregnancy. My pregnancies, once I sustain them, are so good to me, and in fact, I almost feel better pregnant than not!

When Odin was born I had put an associate in place to cover my practice while I stayed home to care for him and myself. My goal was three months of leave, as I’d never had that opportunity with either of my girls. It lasted one week. He was ten days old when I strapped him into a wrap against my chest, cried my eyes out at the office, knowing I wasn’t physically or emotionally ready to be back, and set to work seeing 40 clients per week.

That in itself was stressful enough, let alone the months and years that followed. Again, the details of his story are in this post, but the gist of it is he didn’t sleep through the night for FOUR YEARS. I kept hanging on the wing and a prayer from my mother in law who stated that my husband didn’t sleep through the night until he was 3 and that he experienced allergies until he was 4. And yet, the relief never came.

My Pursuit to Evict Parasites

I continued to test for parasites during those four years. By the time Odin was 18 months old, I was totally depleted, and my health started going backwards. I had bouts of that old cystic acne, I was constantly bloated and could feel myself gaining weight. Muscle loss and cellulite gain was happening despite my ongoing exercise, clean eating routine, and supplement protocol. A colleague of mine shared about a protocol for removing parasites, so I jumped on board. I felt more of the same, and in fact, sometimes worse, for about five months.

Then one day, when I looked into the toilet after a bowel movement, I was delighted and so intensely satisfied to see a 6″ worm sticking out of my stool. I see this frequently in our clients (because they often share pictures — if you really are curious, check out the images in this post), though hadn’t experienced anything myself other than seeing flukes in Odin’s diapers. For the next couple of months, I had regular activity in the bathroom and began to feel better. By late August of this year I had started consistently dropping weight, noticed the cellulite going away, my body began to build muscle again, and the bloating was gone. I again had that flat belly I had always known and was comfortable with. Soon after, I tested out of all parasite support, which was an exciting achievement.

THIS IS ABOUT TO GET DESCRIPTIVE, FRIENDS.

Taking the Full Moon Challenge by Cellcore

The Full Moon Challenge was brought to my attention by some colleagues, so I thought I’d give it a try before our practice members began asking about it. For me, the Advanced 7 Day Challenge seemed the most appropriate, and I did it with last week’s full moon … and could not believe the result.

Here’s how I went about it:

Saturday, November 9, I started the Advanced 7 Day Challenge with between 4 & 6 Para 1 and Para 2, divided equally between morning and night, with three binders in between. Note: I only had ViRadChem Binder on hand, so used that instead of BioToxin Binder.

I continued the same dose until Friday, November 15. There was nothing different about Saturday, Sunday, and Monday other than drinking more water. On Tuesday, I had a bowel movement in the morning with three worms. I had a few more small bowel movements throughout the day with some activity as well, so that felt good. Bear in mind, we only actually see about 30% of parasites that we pass, meaning we DON’T SEE 70% of what our body is passing. Isn’t that insane?

On Wednesday, I had another bowel movement with three worms in it. Then I got to work and had another, and with this bowel movement passed more than I could count. Yes, this is the part where I made my associate come in to the bathroom (ok, not “made” — I didn’t have to twist her arm too much) to be my witness. It was insanely satisfying and intensely gratifying to say the least. And, here’s the thing — I almost missed it. What I mean is I got up to flush and glanced quickly, thinking to myself how the texture of my bowel movements had started to change with this day of the challenge. Then something in me prompted me to look a little more closely. All I did was bend over a bit, and I could see alllllll of what I was missing by standing up here at 5 foot 2.

Why am I about to show you a picture of my bowels? Because it’s not talked about enough. Because we don’t think anything of deworming our domestic pets and farm animals, but we think all the things about taking that step in regards to our own health. We don’t want to know what’s there — in fact, we love to ignore it. If we don’t know it’s there, then we don’t have to do anything about it. How disturbing is that? And yet we have a myriad of health issues, new and old, that we either don’t talk about or just live with because we don’t think it can be handled. Of the immune challenges that test in our practice, parasites are the most common, followed by bacteria and fungus, and with virus coming in fourth.

The way we eat in this society is what keeps these guys alive. We love our sugars and starches, we love late nights and early mornings and lots of stress (or so it seems). We continue to do the things that have these bugs thrive and we pay the price with our symptoms.

Click the button if you want to see what I saw in the toilet that day. It’s graphic. You’ve been warned.