Patient Accounts

Blastocystis 'hominis' News

March 25, 2011: Research publish complete genome sequence of Blastocystis

March 23, 2011: Culinary herbs common in Southeast Asian cooking inhibit growth of Blastocystis in-vitro

February 12, 2011: Diagnostic methods commonly used in laboratories fail to identify most Blastocystis infections

January 17, 2011: US FDA researchers report on new assay for Blastocystis

November 18, 2010: BRF co-authors study on detection of Blastocystis in samples from patients with inflammatory bowel disease and IBS

March 4, 2010: Rats infected with Blastocystis exhibit high levels of oxidative stress in a new paper from Parasitology Research

February 10, 2010: Are any of the antiprotozoal drugs really eradicating Blastocystis 'hominis' infection in patients? A recent review: "Eradication of Blastocystis carriage with antimicrobials: reality or delusion?" says they may not be working.

February 9, 2010: Patients with ulcerative colitis are more likely to experience a relapse in illness if they are infected with Blastocystis and other protozoa

January 15, 2010: BRF co-authors the world's first report on subtyping of Blastocystis 'hominis' isolates from Egypt

Older News

NOTE: The correct term is now Blastocystis not Blastocystis 'hominis' as there is no Blastocystis unique to humans.

Severe Fatigue

The contributor below developed Blastocystis 'hominis' infection years ago, and has had ongoing chronic GI illness since then.

From: --------------
Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2010 11:43 PM
To: Ken Boorom
Subject: Re: Blastocystis 'hominis' - Would you help with veterans project?

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the update.

I have been meaning to contact you, as it has been some time. The fatigue is sometimes overwhelming and the dry eye irritation keeps me off the computer. I've learned to live with the gut issues and have likely to thank Florastor for allowing this to be tolerable. According to the docs this bacteria inhabits the large bowel, though most of my symptoms are gastritis and small bowel growling and intolerance for carbs, esp sweets like chocolate and peanuts. So I have been diagnosed with SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth) via a hydrogen breath test. Gastritis discovered on endoscopy.

It seems that having protein food in my stomach reduces my gastric problems and I am now back to my weight of #150, 20 lbs more than two years ago. You said the weight loss would reverse itself. None of the docs I've spoken with will list BH as pathogenic. Even tried a trial of Alinia a year and a half ago to no avail. The worst of all for me is the eye irritation. Why have you not mentioned this as symptom in articles?